Researchers at Duke University have devised a simple tracking method that promises to dramatically reduce the computing resources needed for computer vision systems that allow computers and robots to sense their surroundings.

The researchers’ method dispenses with the complicated software and lenses and instead maps the angles of light radiating from a source by channeling the light through set of pipes onto a set of light detectors. As an object moves across the field of view, light reflecting from the object triggers some detectors but not others.