The sensor was designed by postgraduate students from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Griffith who say it could be used as the base technology for artificial vision in areas such as robotics.
Faculty Dean, Professor Barry Harrison, said the technology could revolutionise the development of artificial sight.
"The concept of artificial eyes is built on the biological sight of insects and the redundancy that is used.
"We have built upon this foundation and developed a technology that could be used for technologies such as intelligent robotic systems that need to be able to identify objects for navigation."
Professor Harrison said current sensor technology was not advanced enough to allow for 'good eyesight' but the technology his students had developed allowed them to work around the problem.
"We use complex signal processing hardware algorithms in conjunction with low resolution sensors to provide a system that gives the impression of good sight.
"Because of the smart processing capable using very large scale integrated circuit (VLSIC) technology, it is possible to compensate for the use of low resolution sensors."
Professor Harrison said it was hoped a production-quality smart-chip would be finalised by mid-next year and implemented in artificial eye applications within the next four to five years.
The smart sensor was developed as part of Griffith's Masters program in Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit Designm which is conducted in special-purpose laboratories provided by Queensland's Co-operative Research Centre for Microtechnology.
