Testing of IR Sensors Using a Reference Thermal Signal Generator

Methods for testing IR sensors, which are widely used as a source of information about the environment in various sectors of the national economy, are being investigated. It is shown that due to the transformation of the informative parameters of the observed scene by the sensor, information loss at the output of the device is possible. Conditions are derived under which there is no loss of information, and three general cases of transmission of informative parameters with losses are specified. The structure of the testing system is developed, the main element of which is a patented generator of reference test signals, which makes it possible to evaluate such informative parameters as a thermal signal characteristic, distortion, and resolution. The heat signal characteristic is built as a result of heated plates scanning, statistical processing of measurement data, and approximation of the results of statistical processing by a linear dependence. Distortion is inferred from results of measuring the IR LEDs coordinates in the scene created with the reference test signals generator. The resolution is estimated based on the results of constructing the surface of values of the output signal of the IR sensor when scanning the heat-generating plates. For each case, an appropriate assessment methodology is proposed.

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