Management of thermal drift of bolometric infrared cameras: limits and recommendations

In this article, the authors propose a general framework for checking the calibration of the A325sc camera and then minimizing the temperature measurement errors due to thermal drift. Thermal drift and non-uniformity affect the measurement accuracy of infrared bolometric cameras and remain a major problem for the reproducibility and repeatability of radiance quantification. Any thermal camera is pre-calibrated at the factory to correct for thermal drift. This pre-calibration was done for specific case temperatures, and variations in these temperatures are a major source of uncertainty. To improve the accuracy of the camera measurements, it’s important to control the housing temperatures. To this end, a cold box was build up. The effectiveness of the thermal drift compensation was examined over the two ranges of the camera. In the [-20°C; 120°C] range, the thermal drift compensation is efficient up to 110°C. The range [0°C; 350°C] highlights two behaviors: for an emitting temperature within [65-225] °C, the thermal drift compensation is made difficult by the self-heating of the measurement chain due to the intensity of the source. Above 225°C, the self-heating of the optics is significant, as it becomes more absorbent. A correction of the thermosignal is suggested.