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Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Optical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2022) | Viewed by 16721

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Prof. Dr. Yuji Matsuura

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Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
Interests: infrared fiber optics; infrared sensing devices; biomedical optics; medical sensing systems; infrared laser applications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Infrared sensing technologies have commonly been utilized in a variety of applications in industrial and medical fields. Recently, the development of new technologies, such as low-cost InGaAs near-infrared cameras, microbolometer thermal imaging arrays, and hyperspectral cameras have been rapidly expanding these fields. Novel light sources, represented by high-powered near-infrared LEDs and quantum cascade lasers emitting mid-infrared light, also make it possible to develop compact and inexpensive systems for infrared sensing applications. This Special Issue encompasses a broad range of infrared sensors and their applications, including state-of-the-art technologies in sensing devices and systems.

Prof. Dr. Yuji Matsuura
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Infrared light sources for sensing applications:

Infrared laser diodes
Solid-state infrared lasers
Midinfrared lasers
Quantum cascade lasers
Fiber lasers

Infrared sensor technologies:

Infrared photodiodes
Pyroelectric sensors
Thermocouple sensors
Midinfrared sensors
Infrared image sensors
Spectroscopy sensors

Infrared imaging:

Thermal imaging
Industrial applications
Medical imaging applications
Hyperspectral imaging

Applications of infrared sensor technologies:

Industrial applications
Infrared remote sensing
Infrared medical diagnosis
Healthcare applications

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2947 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring Step-Heating and Lock-In Thermography NDT Using One-Sided Inspection on Low-Emissivity Composite Structures for New Rail Carbodies

by Alkiviadis Tromaras and Vassilios Kappatos

Sensors 2022, 22(21), 8195; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22218195 - 26 Oct 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1429

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the qualification of step- and lock-in heating thermography as techniques capable of inspecting new composite rail carbodies following input and inspection requirements set by the rail manufacturing industry. Specifically, we studied (a) a monolithic CFRP sample (20 mm thickness) and (b) a CFRP–PET foam–CFRP sandwich (40 mm total thickness) component, that were manufactured with artificial defects, to replicate the side wall sections of a carbody. The samples proved to be very challenging to test using only one-sided inspection due to (1) exhibiting significant thickness compared to existing literature, (2) low surface emissivity and (3) that the foam core of the sandwich sample was a thermal insulating material. In addition, the sandwich sample was designed with defects on both skins. Both thermography techniques provided similar defect detection results, although step heating offered faster detection. In the case of the monolithic panel, defects up to 10 mm depth were detected, with minor detection of defects at 15 mm depth with a step-heating protocol between 90 s and 120 s overall acquisition, which was faster than the 140 s used with the lock-in technique. For the sandwich component only the front skin defects were detected, with both techniques using heating protocols between 70–120 s. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances)

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18 pages, 7489 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development, Validation and Preliminary Experiments of a Measuring Technique for Eggs Aging Estimation Based on Pulse Phase Thermography

by Antonino Quattrocchi, Fabrizio Freni, Roberto Montanini, Simone Turrisi and Emanuele Zappa

Sensors 2022, 22(9), 3496; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22093496 - 04 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1559

Abstract

Assessment of the freshness of hen eggs destinated to human consumption is an extremely important goal for the modern food industry and sale chains, as eggs show a rapid natural aging which also depends on the storage conditions. Traditional techniques, such as candling and visual observation, have some practical limitations related to the subjective and qualitative nature of the analysis. The main objective of this paper is to propose a robust and automated approach, based on the use of pulsed phase thermography (PPT) and image processing, that can be used as an effective quality control tool to evaluate the freshness of eggs. As many studies show that the air chamber size is proportional to the egg freshness, the technique relies on the monitoring of the air chamber parameters to infer egg aging over time. The raw and phase infrared images are acquired and then post-processed by a dedicated algorithm which has been designed to automatically measure the size of the air chamber, in terms of normalized area and volume. The robustness of the method is firstly assessed through repeatability and reproducibility tests, which demonstrate that the uncertainty in the measure of the air chamber size never exceeds 5%. Then, an experimental campaign on a larger sample of 30 eggs, equally divided into three size categories (M, L, XL), is conducted. For each egg, the main sizes of the air chamber are measured with the proposed method and their evolution over time is investigated. Results have revealed, for all the egg categories, the existence of an analytic relationship and a high degree of correlation (R² > 0.95) between the geometric data of the air chamber and the weight loss, which is a well-known marker of egg aging. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances)

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11 pages, 9865 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spectral-Coding-Based Compressive Single-Pixel NIR Spectroscopy in the Sub-Millisecond Regime

by Paul Gattinger, Ivan Zorin, Christian Rankl and Markus Brandstetter

Sensors 2021, 21(16), 5563; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21165563 - 18 Aug 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2793

Abstract

In this contribution, we present a high-speed, multiplex, grating spectrometer based on a spectral coding approach that is founded on principles of compressive sensing. The spectrometer employs a single-pixel InGaAs detector to measure the signals encoded by an amplitude spatial light modulator (digital micromirror device, DMD). This approach leads to a speed advantage and multiplex sensitivity advantage atypical for standard dispersive systems. Exploiting the 18.2 kHz pattern rate of the DMD, we demonstrated 4.2 ms acquisition times for full spectra with a bandwidth of 450 nm (5250–4300 cm⁻¹; 1.9–2.33 µm). Due to the programmability of the DMD, spectral regions of interest can be chosen freely, thus reducing acquisition times further, down to the sub-millisecond regime. The adjustable resolving power of the system accessed by means of computer simulations is discussed, quantified for different measurement modes, and verified by comparison with a state-of-the-art Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer. We show measurements of characteristic polymer absorption bands in different operation regimes of the spectrometer. The theoretical multiplex advantage of 8 was experimentally verified by comparison of the noise behavior of the spectral coding approach and a standard line-scan approach. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances)

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27 pages, 6134 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A New Roadway Eventual Obstacle Detection System Based on Computer Vision

by Mariano Gonzalez-de-Soto, Rocio Mora, José Antonio Martín-Jiménez and Diego Gonzalez-Aguilera

Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5109; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185109 - 08 Sep 2020

Viewed by 2594

Abstract

A new roadway eventual obstacle detection system based on computer vision is described and evaluated. This system uses low-cost hardware and open-source software to detect and classify moving elements in roads using infra-red and colour video images as input data. This solution represents an important advancement to prevent road accidents due to eventual obstacles which have considerably increased in the past decades, mainly with wildlife. The experimental evaluation of the system demonstrated that the proposed solution detects and classifies correctly different types of moving obstacles on roads, working robustly under different weather and illumination conditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances)

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17 pages, 6032 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Median-Ratio Scene-Based Non-Uniformity Correction Method for Airborne Infrared Point Target Detection System

by Shuai Ding, Dejiang Wang and Tao Zhang

Sensors 2020, 20(11), 3273; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20113273 - 08 Jun 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3065

Abstract

Infrared detectors suffer from severe non-uniform noise which highly reduces image resolution and point target signal-to-noise ratio. This is the restriction for airborne point target detection systems in reaching the background limit. The existing methods are either not accurate enough, or too complex to be applied to engineering. To improve the precision and reduce the algorithm complexity of scene-based Non-Uniformity Correction (NUC) for an airborne point target detection system, a Median-Ratio Scene-based NUC (MRSBNUC) method is proposed. The method is based on the assumption that the median value of neighboring pixels is approximately constant. The NUC coefficients are calculated recursively by selecting the median ratio of adjacent pixels. Several experiments were designed and conducted. For both the clear sky scene and scene with clouds, the non-uniformity is effectively reduced. Furthermore, targets were detected in outfield experiments. For Target 1 48.36 km away and Target 2 50.53 km away, employing MRSBNUC the SNR of the target increased 2.09 and 1.73 times respectively compared to Two-Point NUC. It was concluded that the MRSBNUC method can reduce the non-uniformity of the detector effectively which leads to a longer detection distance and fewer false alarms of the airborne point target detection system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances)

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19 pages, 9449 KiB

Open AccessArticle

DMD Mask Construction to Suppress Blocky Structural Artifacts for Medium Wave Infrared Focal Plane Array-Based Compressive Imaging

by Zimu Wu and Xia Wang

Sensors 2020, 20(3), 900; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20030900 - 07 Feb 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3155

Abstract

With medium wave infrared (MWIR) focal plane array-based (FPA) compressive imaging (CI), high-resolution images can be obtained with a low-resolution MWIR sensor. However, restricted by the size of digital micro-mirror devices (DMD), aperture interference is inevitable. According to the system model of FPA CI, aperture interference aggravates the blocky structural artifacts (BSA) in the reconstructed images, which reduces the image quality. In this paper, we propose a novel DMD mask design strategy, which can effectively suppress BSA and maximize the reconstruction efficiency. Compared with random binary codes, the storage space and computation cost can be significantly reduced. Based on the actual MWIR FPA CI system, we demonstrate the proposed DMD masks can effectively suppress the BSA in the reconstructed images. In addition, a new evaluation index, blocky root mean square error, is proposed to indicate the BSA in FPA CI. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Infrared Sensors and Technologies: Recent Advances)

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