Due to the characteristics of good concealment, strong anti-interference ability, strong target recognition ability, and all-weather work, infrared thermal camera has been widely used in various fields.
With the continuous improvement of infrared thermal camera technology, the mainstream infrared image resolution has been upgraded from 320×240 and 384×288 to 640×480 and 640×512 in just a few years. Higher resolution detectors such as 1024×768 and 1280×1024 are also gradually entering formal products. The improvement of resolution makes the infrared image display more delicate, which is the trend of development in the infrared industry technology. The explosive growth in image data brings huge challenges to the technical design of the core, requiring the core to significantly improve data bandwidth and storage capacity, improve the operating efficiency of image processing algorithms, and realize real-time data processing of high-resolution infrared images. In the future, low-power embedded circuit design technology will continue to innovate and upgrade, constantly adapting to the increase of infrared image resolution.
The continuous improvement of infrared thermal camera technology has promoted the mainstream infrared image resolution to be upgraded from 320×240 to higher resolutions of 1024×768 in just a few years, and the 1280×1024 level detectors have also gradually entered formal products. The improvement of resolution makes the infrared image display more delicate, which is the trend of development in the infrared industry technology.
With the expansion of detector array size, the pixel size of infrared thermal camera is also continuously reduced, and the mainstream non-cooled detector pixel size has been reduced from 25μm to 17μm and 12μm in recent years, and the non-cooled detector with a 10μm pixel size has also been launched. The reduction of pixel size brings benefits to infrared products: it improves spatial resolution and increases range at the same lens focus, or reduces lens focus at the same spatial resolution, thereby reducing the size of the lens and shrinking the volume and weight of the final product. However, the pixel size cannot be reduced indefinitely, and the 12μm and 10μm pixel sizes are approaching the physical diffraction limit of non-cooled infrared thermal camera sensing spectrum of 8~12μm, which is almost impossible to further reduce. The reduction of pixel size also poses challenges to infrared optical lenses. When the pixel size approaches the diffraction limit, the difficulty of optical lens design increases rapidly, and the dispersion spot size imposes strict constraints on optical design, which also makes the control of optical aberration more demanding.
With the sustained development of the economy and the popularization of infrared imaging products, the demand for infrared thermal camera in the market is becoming increasingly strong. In addition to traditional application industries, there will be more emerging market demands that will become new growth points for the infrared imaging market. With the continuous improvement of technology, the cost and price of infrared products tend to decrease, and the variety of products gradually diversifies, which will provide a broader civilian market for the future infrared industry.
