New approach to thermal drift and gain non-uniformity correction in microbolometer detectors

The authors proposed the new approach to non-uniformity correction of microbolometer focal plane arrays in thermal cameras. This approach includes thermal drift compensation with the use of a filter, which is translucent for IR radiation, and it enables compensation of microbolometers' gain non-uniformity. The thermal drift correction coefficients are updated periodically without interrupting the thermal observation. Gain correction coefficients may be updated with an IR emitter built into the camera, without any additional apparatus. The authors developed the dedicated software for the correction purposes.