This tiny camera could give drones predator vision

From body parts to supercars, the family of 3D printed products just keeps expanding. But in a study published last week in Science Advances, scientists think small: German researchers 3D printed different lenses--each smaller than the width of a human hair--onto a chip. Such micro-cameras could be perfect for tiny drones and other pint-sized robots. "Our system is the only one in the world [where] you can put different optic systems on one imaging sensor that is very small," says study author Alois Herkommer, an applied physicist at the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany. "The advantage of doing this by 3D printing is that each of these lenses can be different," says Herkommer.