Seek Thermal, Inc.

Indigo Systems Corporation

Hughes Aircraft Company

Grumman Aerospace Corporation

Flir Systems, Incorporated

Other

Amber Engineering, Inc.

Raytheon Company

California Institute of Technology

Santa Barbara Research Center

William J Parrish

Ross Williams

Andreas Engberg

Jason Wolfe

Naseem Y Aziz

Blake Henry

Jeffrey Lee

Derek Moran

James T Woolaway, Ii

Brian Nehring

Russ Mead

Jeffrey Lynn Heath

Stephen H Black

Vu L Nguyen

Jeffrey Brian Barton

Andrew Sharpe

Paul Schweikert

Romeo Chahine

Jacob Collins

Matt Buckley

Theodore R Hoelter

Eric A Kurth

Sarath D Gunapala

Joseph Kostrzewa

James T Woolaway

Sumith V Bandara

John K Liu

Andrew Duerner

Scott Dayton

Marco A Scussat

Daniel W Wilson

Tim LeBeau

John D Schlesselmann

David C Lindberg

James L Gates

Charles Meyer

Leonard Araki

Joseph G Finegold

Douglas R Kraemer

Jeffery Lee

Adrienne N Costello

George H Poe

Glenn T Kincaid

Christopher L Fletcher

Daniel Bode

Sofia Hamrin

A temperature-controlled calibration source for thermal imaging that provides for extremely inexpensive, mass producible, field deployable thermal calibration in specific, relatively low temperature ranges, and in particular temperatures near nominal human body temperature. A calibration source suitable for such applications may be implemented primarily as a suitable designed Printed Circuit Board (PCB), packaged in a thermally isolating housing and powered of commonly available power sources such as USB chargers.

Cost effective, mass producible temperature controlled thermal imaging calibration source

Thermal cameras, particularly less elaborate inexpensive designs, may deliver high temperature resolution at the expense of less clear displayed images. For many low visibility uses, such as firefighting, it may be advantageous to sacrifice some temperature detail for clarity and object recognition. Without sacrificing the actual detailed temperature information available in a captured scene, it may be beneficial to apply filters in series to raw image data that reduce visible noise and build back in feature contrast for the purposes of providing a user a displayed image that permits ease of object recognition, while still providing the raw data to a thermography module to maintain high resolution of temperature information if desired. In addition, more efficient and useful edge highlighting techniques are disclosed. For very low contrast scenes, such as smoky rooms and the like, other specific filters and equalization methods may be applied.

Noise reduction and feature enhancement for a thermal imaging camera

Systems and methods based on thermal imaging for rapid detection of fever conditions in humans that provide for extremely inexpensive, mass producible, field deployable devices accurate in specific, relatively low temperature ranges, and in particular temperatures near nominal human body temperature. The system may include a thermal imager tailored for the application and a corresponding mass producible controlled temperature calibration source configured to provide real time calibration near the human body temperature of interest. The imager and source are deployed in a way such that target people and the calibration source will be within the imager FOV for fever detection. The combination of real time near measurement temperature calibration, with suitable thermography approaches, yield fast, accurate measurements in the fever range using low cost, easy-to-produce components. In combination with a visible imager and pattern/facial recognition techniques, detection of a human target's facial regions of interest suitable for fever detection can be accurately accomplished.

Cost effective, mass producible system for rapid detection of fever conditions based on thermal imaging

An ultra-small thermal imaging core, or micro-core. The design of the micro-core may include substrates for mounting optics and electronic connectors that are thermally matched to the imaging Focal Plane Array (FPA). Test fixtures for test and adjustment that allow for operation and image acquisition of multiple cores may also be provided. Tooling may be included to position the optics to set the core focus, either by moving the lens and lens holder as one or by pushing and/or pulling the lens against a lens positioning element within the lens holder, while observing a scene. Test procedures and fixtures that allow for full temperature calibration of each individual core, as well as providing data useful for uniformity correction during operation may also be included as part of the test and manufacture of the core.

Design, test, and operation of a small thermal imaging core

A temperature controlled calibration source for thermal imaging that provides for extremely inexpensive, mass producible, field deployable thermal calibration in specific, relatively low temperature ranges, and in particular temperatures near nominal human body temperature. A calibration source suitable for such applications may be implemented primarily as a suitable designed Printed Circuit Board (PCB), packaged in a thermally isolating housing and powered of commonly available power sources such as USB chargers.

Test procedures and equipment for the test and calibration of ultra-small thermal imaging cores, or micro-cores are disclosed. Test fixtures for calibration and adjustment that allow for operation and image acquisition of multiple cores at a time may also be provided. Test procedures and fixtures that allow for full temperature calibration of each individual core, as well as providing data useful for uniformity correction during operation, may also be provided as part of the test and manufacture of the core.

Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) or methods to produce FPAs may be provided for a microbolometer based thermal imaging sensor utilizing wafer level processing (WLP) techniques for manufacture. Batch processing techniques for sealing a cap wafer to an FPA wafer to produce vacuum sealed FPAs may be accomplished with suitable FPA design features in conjunction with a glass frit seal methodology utilizing appropriate frit glass compositions.

Wafer level processed microbolometer focal plane array

A thermography process for thermal imaging systems produced in quantity, including an imaging sensor and an ambient temperature sensor, that includes operations at three different places in the manufacture and actual use of the system. A temperature calibration may be performed on all units of a given design at a small number of controlled scene temperatures at one ambient temperature to produce a function that relates sensor signal to scene temperature. The function is determined for each individual unit and may be unique for each unit. Selected calibrated units may be subjected to a qualification test where they are exposed to larger number of controlled scene temperatures at a plurality of controlled ambient temperatures and the errors between the calibration derived function and the observed results and/or the actual scene temperatures at the various scene/ambient temperature combinations may be derived and put into a table that is loaded into all production units. In actual use of the imaging system, for any given actual observed signal and temperature sensor values, the corresponding scene temperature and/or error may be derived from the table and used to modify the temperature value from the calibration function.

Thermography process for converting signal to temperature in a thermal imaging system

An imaging system whose Field of View FOV experiences occasional motion in relation to viewed scenes may be configured to reduce Fixed Pattern Noise (FPN) of acquired image data. FPN may be reduced by developing a pixel by pixel FPN correction term through a series of steps including blurring the image, identifying pixels to exclude from some calculations, a motion detector and an FPN updater for frames under motion and an FPN decay element for frames that are still.

Fixed pattern noise mitigation for a thermal imaging system

Imaging systems and methods are disclosed that use locally flat scenes to adjust image data. An imaging system includes an array of photodetectors configured to produce an array of intensity values corresponding to light intensity at the photodetectors. The imaging system can be configured to acquire a frame of intensity values, or an image frame, and analyze the image frame to determine if it is locally flat. If the image frame is locally flat, then that image data can be used to determine gradients present in the image frame. An offset mask can be determined from the image data and that offset mask can be used to adjust subsequently acquired image frames to reduce or remove gradients.

Image adjustment based on locally flat scenes

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Santa Barbara, CA, United States of America

William J Parrish