What is a Cooled Thermal Infrared Camera and Why Are They Ideal for Long-Range Surveillance Imaging?
Glossary DefinitionCooled thermal cameras—as their name suggests—use an integrated cryogenic cooler to chill the image core down to temperatures as low as -196°C (-321°F). This increases the sensitivity and accuracy of the thermal imager. As a result, cooled thermal cameras can see longer ranges than uncooled cameras as their greater sensitivity allows for bigger lenses (longer-range lenses are less efficient than the shorter lenses used with uncooled cameras). The higher performance of MWIR cooled thermal cameras comes at a higher cost than standard uncooled LWIR cameras.
Most cooled thermal cameras are InSb and have to be cooled to 77° Kelvin (-196°C or -321°F). These coolers need to run continuously, requiring replacement roughly every 10,000 to 20,000 hours of operation. Infiniti has options that run at a higher temperature, such as our X-Hot sensor which comes in 15μm, 10μm and 5μm pixel pitch (size of the pixels) . Since our X-Hot sensor doesn’t need to be cooled as low, the coolers have longer lifetimes which reduce the cost of ownership. Of course all cooled thermal cameras will require maintenance at some point; even if the cooler itself does not fail, sometimes the seal and dewar assembly can, which is why cooled Cooled thermal refers to a thermal camera that utilizes an integrated cryogenic cooler. Since thermal cameras work by detecting radiated heat, any extra heat in the camera increases unwanted background noise in the image. The cryocooler chills the thermal image core to temperatures as low as -196°C (-321°F), which increases the sensitivity and accuracy of the thermal image, dramatically increasing both range and performance.
