Dennis H. Lemieux

The Effect of Surface Reflection and Surrounding Environment on Target Temperature Estimation using an Infrared FPA

The accuracy of infrared temperature estimation can degrade significant for enclosed objects with reflective surfaces. This paper describes a basic model of the incident radiation on a FPA sensor element considering a target object, surrounding environment, surface temperatures, surface emissivity/reflection and optics. The model is used to characterize the direct (one color method) temperature estimation error as a function of reflection, wavelength, target temperatures and the environment geometry. Temperature estimation errors based on numerical simulations with focus on near infrared are compared in this paper in a variety of scenarios assuming target temperatures between 1000 to 1600 Kelvin. In one scenario is the measured radiation corrected to minimize the error due to reflection.