Temporal Analysis of a Generic Uncooled Detector Response under Extreme Environmental Conditions

Infrared systems have found widespread use in various applications. Infrared detectors can be mainly classified into two types based on their principle of operations: Photon detectors and thermal detectors. Photon detectors provide higher radiometric resolution and fast response while thermal detectors offer portability and cost reduction. However, thermal detectors are exposed to severe random spatial-temporal noise due to their physical structure; and require periodical non-uniformity corrections. Noise components of uncooled thermal detectors may vary dramatically at long operation times and pixel responses often drift with time. It is critical to measure the uncooled thermal detector noise at different environmental conditions and with respect to time. The instability of response makes it difficult for deriving a general expression for the noise characteristic of uncooled detectors. In this study, uncooled detector response under extreme environmental conditions has been investigated. Raw data at a constant blackbody temperature is recorded every half an hour for 4 hours with a generic uncooled system at different temperatures near and slightly over the specification limits as an accelerated test. The response of the uncooled detector is investigated on raw images at varying times and environmental temperatures.