Abstract: To address the problem of traditional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imaging systems being unable to achieve the coexistence of large field of view and high resolution, a large field of view and high-resolution UAV-borne compound eye camera system composed of a curved sub-eye array, an optical relay system and an image detector was designed. The non-spherical design was used for the relay system to reduce the system volume. Each sub-eye had a focal length of 20 mm and a field of view of 10°. The relay system used a fisheye lens with a focal length of 7 mm to convert the curved focal surface formed by the sub-eye array into a planar image. The overall system had a field of view of 122°×106°, an F-number of 3, and a focal length of 3 mm, achieving a ground resolution of 0.8 m at a flying height of 1 000 m. The simulation results show that the modulation transfer function (MTF) of each optical sub-channel is greater than 0.3 at 208 lp/mm, and the image quality of the system meets the requirements within the given tolerance range. Compared to existing UAV-borne compound eye systems, the proposed system offers a larger field of view, higher resolution and smaller size.