A lensless camera is a digital camera that can take photos and video images without using any lens. It uses a permeable film, instead of a lens, to project images of the photographic subjects and reproduces pictures and images through digital processing.
The mechanism of a camera, which uses a lens to form and project the image of a photographic subject, was established in the 16th century. Since then, a lens has been indispensable for cameras. The camera's fundamental structure of using a lens has not changed for a long time, although improvements have been made to photosensitive materials for recording images and digital cameras have become widespread in recent years. While a variety of devices including mobile equipment and robots have transformed themselves into thinner and more compact models, there has been a limit to incorporating cameras into such thinner and more compact devices due to the lenses.
Given this situation, Hitachi, Ltd. developed Japan's first lensless camera in 2016. It is expected that, by incorporating the lensless camera onto a variety of devices such as sensors used for IoT, data can be collected from numerous places and under various conditions.
