The goal of the project is to integrate optical, optoelectronic, hardware, and software technology to realize a smart visual sensor, and to demonstrate its utility in key application areas. In particular our intention is to design and realize a low-cost, miniaturized digital camera acquiring panoramic (360 deg) images and performing a useful low-level processing on the incoming stream of images in real-time. Target applications include surveillance, quality control and mobile robot and vehicle navigation.