Using High Speed Shutter to Reduce

Motion Blur in a Microbolometer

Aevan Nadjib Danial

Lule
a University of Technology
Dept. of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering

November 2013

A BSTRACT
Thermal cameras are widely used in many applications, They variate in price and performance. The variant discussed in this paper is a thermal camera with a microbolometer
detector technology. Extremely affordable, lightweight and low power consumptions are a
few of the reasons why microbolometers are a good choice for every day thermal imaging
applications.
The main issue with a microbolometer camera is the motion blur effect shown if viewing
dynamic scenes, due to the thermal inertia of the detecting material. The aim of this
work is to reduce the motion blur effect with the help of high speed shutter technology.
An optical chopper is used to manipulate the exposure time for the camera during
operation. With the help of advanced software, data are collected for different exposure
times. The results show that the motion blur effect can be considerably reduced while
still maintaining sufficient amount of thermal information and image quality.

iii

P REFACE
This bachelor thesis is the final project for a bachelor degree in Engineering Physics and
Electrical Engineering at Lule
a University of Technology and was conducted at Saab
Dynamics in Linkoping.
I would like to thank my supervisor at LTU, Torbjorn Lofqvist and my external supervisor at Saab Dynamics, Arvid Larsson for their guidance and support. I would also like
to thank Termisk Systemteknik for providing the FLIR A35 thermal camera.

Aevan Nadjib Danial

C ONTENTS
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 Problem area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 2 Theory
2.1 Infrared radiation . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.1 Blackbody radiation . . . .
2.1.2 Atmospheric influence . . .
2.2 Resistive bolometers . . . . . . . .
2.2.1 Performance parameters . .
2.3 Microbolometer assembly . . . . . .
2.3.1 Microbolometer temperature
2.4 Microbolometer operation . . . . .
2.4.1 Signal decay . . . . . . . . .
2.4.2 Motion blur . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 3 Method
3.1 The equipment . . . . . . . .
3.1.1 Thermal camera . . . .
3.1.2 Optical chopper . . . .
3.1.3 Oscilloscope . . . . . .
3.1.4 Radiation sources . . .
3.1.5 Complete assembly . .
3.1.6 Modified chopper blade
3.2 The experiments . . . . . . .
3.2.1 Step response . . . . .
3.2.2 Motion blur . . . . . .

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Chapter 4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Object signal . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.1 Step response . . . . . . .
4.1.2 Time constant . . . . . . .
4.1.3 Temperature sensitivity .

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Chapter 5 Future Work and Conclusion

5.1 Future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.3

Motion blur . . . . . .
4.2.1 Image quality .
4.2.2 Signal memory
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C HAPTER 1
Introduction
Infrared Radiation Imaging technology is widely used in many applications. The ever
increasing demands from military as well as non-military industries are driving the technology forward. Some of the common applications of infrared imaging are night vision,
fire fighting, research, medical imaging and surveillance.
Infrared camera detectors are divided into two varieties: cooled and uncooled. The
detector discussed in this paper is an uncooled variant called a microbolometer, a specific type of resistive bolometer. A resistive bolometer measures the electrical resistance
change when incident electromagnetic radiation strikes the detecting material [1]. The
microbolometer uses the same principle and does not require cooling unlike other types
of infrared detectors.
The typical spectral range for a modern microbolometer is between 7.5-13.5 m and
image resolutions ranging from about 160 120 pixels up to 1024 1024 pixels [2], this is
made possible by the development of smaller pixel size, also called detector pitch between
15-50 m [3]

1.1

Background

The first bolometer was invented by Samuel P. Langley in 1880, consisting of two platinum
strips covered with soot, one of the strips was protected from radiation and the other
one exposed to it, the strips formed a Wheatstone bridge and was fitted with a sensitive
galvanometer connected to a battery, the galvanometer produced a variation proportional
to the intensity of radiation falling on the exposed strip [4]. By the time Langley had
perfected his bolometer it was sensitive enough to be able to detect thermal radiation
from a cow 400 meters away [5].
Microbolometer technology was originally developed by Honeywell, Honeywell later licensed their technology to several manufacturers including FLIR Systems, InfraredVision
Technology Corporation, Boeing and BAE Systems. Uncooled infrared detectors have
1

Introduction

also been developed by European companies as for example ULIS.

1.2

Problem area

Lightweight, small, low power consumption and relatively inexpensive compared to cooled
infrared cameras are a couple of advantages making the microbolometer an easy choice for
every day thermal imaging applications. Modern microbolometer utilize vanadium oxide
(VOx ) or amorphous silicon (-Si) as the thermal detecting material, both materials have
a defined thermal inertia which determine the sensitivity and the speed of the camera,
which is the main disadvantage compared to cooled infrared detectors when dealing with
situations where motion blur emerge caused by objects moving at high speed. Finding a
solution to this problem is the main reason for this work.

1.3

Purpose

Investigations were conducted to:

Plot the step response of the microbolometer to compare with theoretical behaviour.
Identify the time constant for a specific camera (FLIR A35) to compare with the
time constant supplied by the manufacturer.
Investigate the temperature sensitivity when identifying objects with different temperatures at decreased exposure time.
Investigate the improvement of motion blur when decreasing the exposure time.
Determine how the camera signal (image quality) is influenced by modifying the
exposure time.
Analyse the signal memory behaviour of the camera at extremely fast chopping
speed.

C HAPTER 2
Theory

2.1

Infrared radiation

Infrared (IR) light is a portion of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength longer than
visible light ranging from 0.7 to 1000 m, in 1800 William Herschel discovered infrared
light in sunlight by using a prism and holding a thermometer just beyond the red light,
coming to a conclusion that there is invisible light beyond the visible spectrum.
Earths climate is greatly effected by infrared radiation which is approximately half
of the arriving energy from the suns radiation making life possible on earth, the rest
of the radiated energy is from visible light and ultraviolet radiation. Infrared radiation
is commonly divided into five divisions, see table 2.1. The most important one in this
work is the long-wavelength infrared (LWIR), also called the thermal imaging region
where collected temperature values of an object by an IR camera are converted into an
calibrated digital image, therefore displaying an objects temperature without making
contact.

Table 2.1: Divisions of infrared radiation

Division

Abbreviation

Wavelength

Near infrared
Short-wavelength infrared
Mid-wavelength infrared
Long-wavelength infrared
Far infrared

NIR
SWIR
MWIR
LWIR
FIR

0.7-1.4 m
1.4-3 m
3-8 m
8-14 m
14-1000 m

Theory

2.1.1

Blackbody radiation

A blackbody is characterised as a perfect radiator, absorbing all incident radiation falling

upon it. In 1900 Max Planck announced an equation describing the relation between the
radiation emitted by a blackbody as a function of temperature and wavelength [6], the
relation is shown here:
W (T ) =

2hc2
1
hc
5
e kB T 1

(2.1)

where
W (T ) is the spectral radiance as a function of wavelength
h is the Planck constant
kB is the Boltzmann constant
T is the temperature in Kelvin
c is the speed of light in vacuum
Equation 2.1 is called Planck radiation law.
Another equation explaining the total radiation emitted by a blackbody shown here:
P = AT 4

(2.2)

where
 is the emissivity of the radiating object ranging from 0 to 1 giving information
about how close is the object radiating as an perfect blackbody, denoting Pobject as
the radiation emitted by an object and Pblack the radiation emitted by a blackbody
will give equation 2.3
Pobject
=
(2.3)
Pblack
is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
A is the area of the radiating object
Equation 2.2 is the Stefan-Boltzmann law which is valid for objects having a constant value for emissivity at any wavelength, also called a greybody, but objects usually
identified by an infrared camera are neither blackbodies nor greybodies. However, thermography is conducted only at specific range of wavelength making it possible to treat
objects as greybodies, acknowledging the emissivity is therefore a very important part of
thermal imaging.

2.2. Resistive bolometers

2.1.2

Atmospheric influence

Life is sustainable on earth because of the atmospheric transmittance, or atmospheric

window where infrared radiation is allowed by the atmosphere, without it earth will
be much too warm to support life. There are two important parts of this atmospheric
window that have to be acknowledged when conducting thermographic measurements,
they are the mid-wavelength window ranging between 2-5 m and the long-wavelength
window ranging between 7.5-13.5 m. The atmospheric transmittance prevents an infrared camera from collecting the total radiation from an object, therefore correction for
atmospheric attenuation are made with the help of IR software to display better results.

2.2

Resistive bolometers

A resistive bolometer can be simply explained as a temperature-sensitive electrical resistor, the detecting material temperature is raised by the incident radiation, the temperature raise causes a change in electrical resistance measured by an external circuit.
When radiation is no longer falling upon the detector, temperature decreases at a rate
determined by performance parameters mentioned below.

2.2.1

Performance parameters

The performance of any resistive bolometers is marked by these most important parameters:
Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A value obtained by comparing the average object
signal () to the standard deviation of the noise (). Shown in equation 2.4.
SN R =

(2.4)

Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD). It is the amount of detected

temperature signal required to match the internal noise of the detector, resulting
in a SNR value of 1.
Responsivity (<), a measurement of how well the detector is able to convert the
incident optical signal into an electrical signal.
Thermal response time ( ), also labelled time constant. The time it takes the
detector to reach 1 1e 63% of the final value, in response to a step signal input
[7].

2.3

Theory

Microbolometer assembly

When designing and manufacturing a microbolometer, a number of criteria and design

features are considered to meet the performance standards, modern microbolometers
employ a pixel structure originally developed by Honeywell. To produce the detecting
area, a thin membrane usually made of silicon nitride (Si3 N4 ) is applied mainly because
of its insulator property, upon which the detecting material usually being vanadium
oxide (VOx ) is dispersed. To transfer the electrical change to the read-out electrical
circuit, the membrane are supported above a silicon substrate with long and low thermal
conductive legs typically made of thin metal. The legs are long to obtain a small
thermal conduction between the detector and its surrounding. To maximize the amount
absorbed radiation, a reflective layer is placed on the substrate below the membrane to
reflect back the incident infrared radiation not fully absorbed by the membrane, the best
results are accomplished when the distance between the reflective layer and the membrane
is 4 [1], therefore a large amount of the incident radiation at a specific wavelength is
absorbed. If the detector is operating in the 8-12 m spectral interval, the spacing would
be between 2-3 m.
Each individual pixel is placed in an array to create the so called focal plane array
(FPA). In addition, the assembly is integrated into a vacuum package to minimize the
thermal conduction between the microbolometer and its surrounding. The structure of
a pixel and the focal plane array are seen in figure 2.1
The structure of the focal plane array of a microbolometer is in rapid development
with both increased image resolution and decreased pixel dimensions. As mentioned in
chapter 1, companies are producing low-cost detectors with a detector pitch as small as
17 m making it possible today to increase the resolution as high as 1024 1024 pixels.

2.3.1

Microbolometer temperature sensing materials

The Material used to sense temperature changes in a microbolometer is very important,

the sensitivity of such material will decide the image quality and depth of view. The two
most used materials are: vanadium oxide (VOx ) and amorphous silicon (-Si). In the
early days of microbolometer technology,-Si had an advantage over VOx because of its
ability to be manufactured it in a silicon foundry, meanwhile vanadium oxide technology
was still controlled by the US military. Today, there are no reasons to choose -Si
over VOx since it is produced in a silicon foundry and the licence restriction have been
removed.
It is important to compare the NETD value for these two materials. A low NETD
value means that a thermal camera will be able to detect extremely small temperature
differences, resulting in more detailed images and a better range performance. Companies
producing these detectors provide a measured NETD values at different parameters,
one of these parameters is the F-number of the lens, which is the ratio of the lenss
focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil. A recalculation of the F-number is

2.4. Microbolometer operation

Figure 2.1: The structure of the individual pixels in a microbolometer with an illustration of
the focal plane array.

therefore necessary to achieve the same parameter value before comparing the NETD
values. Detectors using VOx are more sensitive than ones using -Si [3].

2.4

Microbolometer operation

The image processing of a microbolometer is involved around a typical step response of

first order for any given system. First, a Heavyside step function is introduced when the
detector is subjected to a temperature difference, a step response will immediately build
up with a specific speed. The speed is often specified according to the time constant
which is the time it takes to reach 1 1e 63% of the initial input value. It is important
not to mix time constant with the integration time since a microbolometer is constantly
open to incoming radiation, and responds to changes with the specified time constant,
the term integration time is used to investigate the behaviour of the detector when

Theory

externally changing the amount of time where a step response build up is allowed. The
step response and time constant for a microbolometer are explained with [1]
C

dT
+ GT = AD P0 [(h(0) h(ti )],
dt

C
.
G
The parameters in equation 2.5 are listed below.
=

(2.5)
(2.6)

is the optical absorption coefficient.

is the fill factor, defines the portion of the pixel area which is used to absorb the
incident radiation.
AD is the pixel area.
P0 is the amplitude of the incident radiation power per unit area which is modulated
at angular frequency .
h is the Heavyside step function with ti as the integration time.
G and C is the thermal conductance and heat capacity of the microbolometer.
The theoretical behaviour for a microbolometer is determined by solving and normalizing the differential equation 2.5, the results are seen below.
dT
G
+ T = 1,
dt
C
t

y =1e .

(2.7)
(2.8)

Figure 2.2 display the theoretical step response for a microbolometer with a thermal
time constant of 15 ms.

2.4.1

Signal decay

When radiation reaching the detector is abruptly blocked at any specific moment, the
image signal level generated in that amount of time start to decay at an exponential
rate. The speed of the decay are dependent by the performance parameters explained
earlier, a collected term for this is often called the thermal inertia which is effected by
the responsivity, heat capacity and thermal conductance of the detecting material. The
fact that the a microbolometer is constantly open to incoming radiation and image signal
decay at a exponential rate makes uncooled thermal cameras inaccurate as a high speed
snapshot camera because moving objects map to more pixels resulting in a motion blur
effect.

2.4. Microbolometer operation

1
0.9

normalized signal

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

Time constant = 15ms

0

10

15

20
25
Time [ms]

30

35

40

45

Figure 2.2: The theoretical step response for a microbolometer with thermal time constant 15
ms.

2.4.2

Motion blur

A solution to reduce the motion blur effect would be to shorten the amount of time
(exposure time) the radiation is falling upon the detector by for example using an optical
chopper, therefore reducing the amount of photons being detected. The major drawback
of this would be the lower level of image signal generated in that short time resulting in
a lower image quality, but the method would theoretically reduce the motion blur.

C HAPTER 3
Method
3.1

The equipment

Equipments used to perform the desired experiments are explained in this section.

3.1.1

Thermal camera

The main component being the camera is FLIR A35, it is highly temperature sensitive,
low cost and compact. The camera was controlled by a computer software called FLIR
ResearchIR MAX via a Ethernet cable. The image and optical data for FLIR A35 can
be seen in table 3.1. FOV is the range of angles from which the incident radiation can
be collected by the detector and IFOV is the range of incident angles seen by a single
detecting element in the focal plane.

Table 3.1: Specification for FLIR A35 camera [8]

Property

Data

IR resolution
NETD
Field of view (FOV)
Spectral resolution (IFOV)
Focal length
F-number
Detector type
Spectral range
Detector pitch
Detector time constant

320 256 pixels

50 mK
25 19
1.32 mrad
19 mm
1.25
Focal plane array (FPA), uncooled (VOx ) microbolometer
7.5-13 m
25 m
Typical 12 ms

11

12

3.1.2

Method

Optical chopper

There are many ways to manipulate the amount of radiation reaching the camera, the
best way would be to use an optical shutter with configurable exposure time (shutter
speed). For the sake of using equipment already available in the lab, an optical chopper
was used instead. An optical chopper is a device which interrupts an incoming radiation
periodically, this is done with a rotating blade with an number of slots. The chopper
controller SR540 by Stanford Research Systems is displayed below.

Figure 3.1: The Optical chopper SR540 with a 5/6 slots rotating blade.

To further understand how the controller calculates the frequency of the rotating blade,
A small notch and a number of slots are viewed in figure 3.1, the controller determine
the outer and inner frequency by two light sensors detecting light when a notch and each
of the slots respectively pass over.

3.1.3

Oscilloscope

The frequency of the rotating blade could be easy viewed in the small display of the
SR540 controller, to gain a more accurate and a better representation of the frequency,
an oscilloscope was used alongside the controller. A coaxial cable is connected to the
reference port of the controller to send the signal. The oscilloscope used in this lab is
Agilent InfiniiVision DSO-X 3034A.

3.1.4

Radiation sources

To gain more accurate results when conducting the experiments, blackbody radiators
were used. A cavity blackbody IR-564 by Infrared System Development and a extended

3.1. The equipment

13

area blackbody PCN 300 by HGH Infrared Systems are displayed in figure 3.2, The
two blackbodies were also controlled to a precise temperature by their respective control
boxes.

Figure 3.2: From the left: the cavity blackbody and the extended area blackbody.

Each one of the blackbodies was set to different temperature to gain a temperature
difference of 10C, the reason was to be able to find the temperature sensitivity for the
camera at reduced exposure time.

3.1.5

Complete assembly

A final view of the complete assembly can be seen in figure 3.3. The reference output
signal from the chopper controller was split to send signal to both the oscilloscope and
the cameras digital IO port. The connection to the camera was established by modifying
the cameras synchronizing cable end with a coaxial connector.
The motivation for the signal splitting was to achieve a synchronization between the
camera and the rotating chopper blade which could be done according to the camera
manual [9], both the camera and the rotating chopper are therefore operating at the
same frequency generating a frame each time the slot fly by the camera lens. However,
this is software limited at only (25, 30, 50 and 60) Hz. This is achieved by modifying the
outer light sensor notch detection frequency and aligning the camera with the beginning

14

Method

of the slot.

Figure 3.3: A complete assembly of the camera equipment.

3.1.6

Modified chopper blade

A five slot rotating blade was used mainly because the cut-out of the slot do not obstruct
the camera aperture, in addition to this, the blade was modified by covering four of the
slots with material obstructing the camera vision, in this case paper on each side of the
blade was glued on and cut to a specific shape making sure that the light sensors were
still detecting the notch and the slots, this is visible in figure 3.3.
The modification increases the amount of time the radiation is being blocked. Camera
signal decay at an exponential rate, it is therefore important that an old step response
decayed an expectable amount before introducing the next one. The modification will
in this case regulate both the exposure time and the time between each exposure (signal
decay time) since it is a rotating blade. If a new signal is introduced earlier beacuse of

3.2. The experiments

15

the signal decay time not being long enough, partial of the old signal would be apparent
in the new signal, which in this text will be termed as signal memory. A visualisation
of modified chopper blade operation can be seen in figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4: The modified chopper blade operation.

3.2

The experiments

A detailed walkthrough of the experiments conducted to solve the challenges listed in

chapter 1 are in this section.

3.2.1

Step response

The camera and the rotating chopper blade were mounted as close as possible on a optical
table board to minimize radiation reflection caused by the paper which could affect the
final results, also placing the two blackbodies at the same distance from the camera to
fully utilize its field of view. As earlier mentioned, a temperature difference for the two
blackbodies of 10C was accomplished by their corresponding control boxes, noting that
a temperature stabilization can approximately take one hour.
The camera was connected to a computer via an Ethernet cable to be controlled by
the software FLIR ResearchIR MAX, with the two blackbodies radiating at different
temperature as a live feed on the display. Output data information can be set as real
temperature value or as a raw object signal. Object signal was chosen to achieve a wider
range of output data for better results. The software display content normally as a grey
scale, more detailed image is gained by selecting other palette for image colourization,
rainbow was therefore set as the standard colour scale, one can more easy distinguish a

16

Method

temperature difference across the whole scene or at a concentrated area of the camera
resolution with this palette.
To investigate the object signal from the two blackbodies, a measurement area was set
by the measurement tools embedded in the software on the two concentrated radiation
spots, This will measure both the pixel area and object signal value variation during
a time range. For the extended area blackbody, both average and standard deviation
values were acquired. As for the cavity blackbody, collecting the average values sufficed since the extended area blackbody cover a larger measurement area and having a
higher temperature resulting in a overall more accurate data. Figure 3.5 displays the two
blackbodies with rainbow colourization.

Figure 3.5: A thermal image of the two blackbodies.

Data collection have to be made for different exposure time values to inspect the objects
signal variance, this is done by controlling the speed of the rotating chopper blade to
variate the exposure time between 1.5-45 ms with appropriate increments monitored
accurately with the oscilloscope. A maximum and minimum signal during unobstructed
versus fully blocked by the chopper blade was also obtained to be used as reference points.
Each data acquisition continued for approximately one minute and exported to a CSV
file.
Next, a MATLAB script file was written to import the information from the CSV files,

3.2. The experiments

17

the time constant of the camera can be identified by plotting the normalized step response
and identify the time at which 63% of the final value have been gained or by adding and
comparing with theoretical step response plots for different time constants. Furthermore,
finding the SNR values will give information about the sensitivity of the detector when
identifying two object with a temperature difference, subtracting the maximum signal
difference for the two objects and dividing with the corresponding standard deviation
will give the SNR value.

3.2.2

Motion blur

As mentioned in chapter 2, decreasing the exposure time will theoretically result in

an improvement for the motion blur effect when observing a moving object. This was
examined by using the extended area blackbody as the warm background and dropping
a cold steel ball from a specific height. This was executed for exposure times from 45
ms to 4 ms with appropriate decrements closely monitored by the oscilloscope. The large
temperature difference between the background and the steel ball simplified motion blur
detection, using a rainbow colourization assisted for an even easier detection.
Capturing an acceptable image of the falling steel ball was difficult especially at longer
exposure time since the radiation is being blocked longer then unobstructed because of the
chopper blade modification, a container was therefore placed to collected the falling ball
and the dropping procedure repeated multiple times while capturing a video sequence.
The video sequence was examined for possibly acceptable frame where the motion blur
of the ball is fully detected. To find the motion blur improvement at decreased exposure
time, a measurement area was placed covering the motion blur, pixel points was also
placed at the dropping hight, centre of the steel ball and the end of the extended area to
compensate for speed difference since the object can be captured at different position.
Finally, the original pixel length of the steel ball was found by capturing an image of
the ball while holding it in front of the background. The maximum motion blur was also
collected by dropping the ball when totally unobstructed by the chopper blade to be set
as a reference value. The collected data was exported to CSV files and processed with
MATLAB to find the motion blur improvement.
Image quality will be affected by shortening the exposure time, images for each time
exposure was therefore saved with a object signal scale. Figure 3.6 shows the motion
blur and the object signal scale for unobstructed capturing.

18

Method

Figure 3.6: Image displaying the motion blur for unobstructed capturing.

The signal memory appear at extremely fast chopping speed, a video sequence was
therefore taken at an exposure time of 1 ms. The behaviour was saved as a image to be
analysed.

C HAPTER 4
Results and Discussion
4.1

Object signal

Plotting the object signal obtained during the experiments for both the cavity and extended area blackbody will display the temperature difference, see figure 4.1. It is seen
that as exposure time decreases, the level of object signal also decreases and the temperature difference fades out.

9000

8000

object signal

7000

6000

5000

4000
extended area blackbody
cavity blackbody
3000

10

15

20
25
30
Exposure Time [ms]

35

40

Figure 4.1: The object signal for the two blackbodies.

19

45

20

Results and Discussion

4.1.1

Step response

The object signal values are converted temperature values, it is therefore necessary to
normalize them before a comparison to the theoretical behaviour can be done. This will
create a signal contrast which can also be used to identify the image quality at any
exposure time and the time constant which will be, as mentioned before in chapter 3,
63% of the final value.
The maximum value was chosen from each data collection to ensure the highest object
signal, the normalization of these can be seen in the equation below.

contrast =

Signalmax Signalminmax
Signal(max 1)max

.
Signal(max 1)max Signalminmax
Signalmaxmax

(4.1)

Where
Signalmax is the highest value for each exposure time.
Signalminmax is the highest value during fully blocked radiation.
Signal(max 1)max is the highest value for the exposure time of 45 ms.
Signalmaxmax is the highest value during fully unobstructed radiation.
This should normalize all the object signal, which is confirmed with figure 4.2. It is
also visible that the signal reaches close to maximum level for the first 45 ms and an
almost identical step response for camera when viewing objects at different temperature.

4.1.2

Time constant

According to table 3.1, the time constant for the camera should be typical 12 ms.
Roughly measuring the time for which an 63% of the final value have been reached
in figure 4.2 would result in 15 ms. Plotting the normalized theoretical step response in
equation 2.8 for time constants 12 and 15 ms and adding them presents figure 4.3 which
confirms the roughly estimated value.

4.1. Object signal

21

1
0.9
0.8

object contrast

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

Extended area blackbody

Cavity blackbody
0

10

15

20
25
30
Exposure Time [ms]

35

40

45

Figure 4.2: The step response for FLIR A35 camera.

1
0.9
0.8

object contrast

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Extended area blackbody
Cavity blackbody
Theoretical data 12 ms
Theoretical data 15 ms

0.2
0.1
0

10

15

20
25
30
Exposure time [ms]

35

40

45

Figure 4.3: The theoretical step response for time constants 12 and 15 ms added.

22

4.1.3

Results and Discussion

Temperature sensitivity

For each maximum object signal collected, the correspondent standard deviation was
also collected. Denoting (EAB) for the extended area blackbody and (CB) for the cavity
blackbody results in equation 4.2. At an SNR value of 1, the temperature difference is
equal to the internal noise of the camera, meaning that the camera is unable to detect
any temperature difference between the two objects.
Signal(EAB)max Signal(CB)max
.
(4.2)
corr
For a temperature difference of 10C, figure 4.4 displays a SNR value of 1 for an exposure
time shorter then 4 ms. There are also values below 1, this is due to the high uncertainty
of the values collected at such high speed chopping, the values are small and differentiate
loosely.
SN R =

12

Signaltonoise ratio SNR

10

10

15

20
25
30
Exposure Time [ms]

35

40

45

Figure 4.4: A plot for the SNR values at different exposure times.

As a conclusion, the camera is loosing important temperature information when short-

4.2. Motion blur

23

ening the exposure time. Generally, exposure time would have to be shorter to reach
the temperature sensitivity limit for a higher temperature difference and vice versa. It is
important to set a boundary for how short the exposure time is allowed to be depending
on how temperature variant a scene to gain useful thermal images.

4.2

Motion blur

Dropping a steel ball in front of a much warmer background being the extended area
helped detecting the motion blur effect especially at decreased exposure time affecting
the sensitivity performance of the camera. The chance of capturing a justified image
where the motion blur is fully visible was very small for long exposure times which
lead to multiple video sequences. Figure 4.5 shows the motion blur improvement for a
decreasing exposure time. It is seen that the motion blur reduces with shorter exposure
time, while important information about the temperature differences across a scene is
lost.

(a) Unobstructed

(b) 25 ms

(c) 8 ms

(d) 4.5 ms

Figure 4.5: The motion blur improvement for decreased exposure time.

24

Results and Discussion

Compensating for speed difference because of the steel balls different position for each
video sequence, removing the original length of the steel ball in pixels and plotting the
affective motion blur results in the following figure below. At an exposure time of 4.5
ms, the motion blur is barely 3 pixels long which is a huge improvement.

35

30

motion blur [pixels]

25

20

15

10

10

15

20
25
30
Exposure time [ms]

35

40

45

Figure 4.6: A plot for the motion blur in pixels at different exposure time.

4.2.1

Image quality

The downside of shortening the exposure time is the loss of a detailed image. Viewing
figure 4.2 and the figure 4.5, it is concluded that image quality degrade by loss of sharpness, temperature sensitivity and depth of view. There are however enough details to
suffice for most imaging situations.

4.3. Discussion

4.2.2

25

Signal memory

Because of a slow signal build up and an exponential signal decay, a microbolometer is

not intended to be used as a high speed camera. Due to the method used in this work,
an extremely short exposure time leads to a too short time period for the signal to decay.
This results in multiple ghosts of an object in the same image frame if it is moving at
high speed. Figure 4.7 illustrate the steel ball repeated multiple times during an exposure
time of 1 ms. It is also apparent that repeats create a cooler region where the two
intersect, yet another confirmation for signal memory behaviour.

Figure 4.7: An image of the moving steel ball at exposure time 1 ms (this figure produces poorly
if printed in black & white).

4.3

Discussion

It could be seen that all the experiments were conducted up to a certain exposure time
which in this case was 45 ms, this was not the case during the early stage of data collection
where the longest exposure time was set to 30 ms. To reach a step response of nearly the
maximum object signal obtained during unobstructed radiation, longer exposure time

26

Results and Discussion

is required, 30 ms was simply not enough to illustrate the levelling out behaviour
characterizing the response to a step of first order.
Confusion may develop when viewing a exposure time 0 ms which is impossible, but
this value was assigned for the fully blocked radiation. Figure 4.1 displays an object
signal of 3500 as the dark count, because the thermal cameras ability to always
detect radiation in spite of how small it would be. This is however the best way to
approximate the smallest value obtained from the radiating objects.
The time constant for the camera, according to the specification, a typical 12 ms.
Further investigation lead to a longer time constant of 15 ms which should be expected
since the company do not state a well-defined value.
As assumed, the shortening of the exposure time will effect the motion blur significantly,
but with a disadvantage as decreased image quality, figure 4.5 shows a reduction in image
contrast and depth of view. As an example, notice how the hand at the top blend in
with the background as the exposure time is shortened.
The cameras ability to detect a temperature difference across a scene is very essential
in many situations, it is therefore necessary to realize how temperature sensitive the
camera is during decreased exposure time. For a 10C difference, the camera was having
a difficult time observing any temperature difference between the two blackbodies when
the noise level is equal to the detected signal which is appearing at an exposure time
shorter then 4 ms, figure 4.4 display SNR values smaller then 1, this is due to the large
uncertainty because of small values with large fluctuations. Having a higher temperature
difference will indeed mean that the temperature sensitivity limit will not be reached as
fast during decreased exposure time, but the use of a smaller temperature difference will
replicate a real life scenario of the blend in effect already mentioned above.
The used of a rotating blade effects two parameters: the exposure time and the time
between each exposure (the signal decay time). A ghosting effect where multiple repeats
of a moving object appear during too short exposure time can be avoided by operating
while keeping a long enough signal decay time so that the camera can keep up with
the quick changes. Figure 4.5(d) show no ghosting effect, the allowed signal decay time
for this case is approximately 45 ms because the rotating chopper blade is divided into
10 equal sections. Operating at an exposure time of 1 ms means a signal decay time of
only 10 ms leading to the signal memory behaviour, there is also no need to run at such
high chopping speed since image quality is very poor. Another approach to prevent the
signal memory would be to use a more conventional equipment as an high speed optical
shutter.

C HAPTER 5
Future Work and Conclusion
5.1

Future work

The objective of this work was to investigate if high speed shutter technology can reduce
the motion blur effect in a microbolometer. Since it is now confirmed to be an reasonable
solution, the next step would be to invest in an optical shutter and implement it with the
camera to create a single operational unit to be used for real life situation as capturing
images of objects travelling at high speed while still maintaining an acceptable image
quality.

5.2

Conclusion

The challenging questions of this work was answered by organising a set of equipment
with an microbolometer detector camera to test if motion blur can be reduced with the
help of high speed shutter technology. Equipment used to modify the exposure time is a
modified optical chopper usually used to modify light to pulsated form. The behaviour of
the signal detected by the camera during modified exposure time was also investigated to
provide a deeper understanding of the microbolometer operation, two blackbody radiators
was therefore used. The software controlling the camera was used to collect the important
data to be analysed.
The detected object signal behaviour was investigated initially, it was concluded that
the step response for the microbolometer follow theoretical behaviour of a response of first
order, this was confirmed with plots. Using the plots, the time constant for the camera
was also determined to be able to compare it with provided value from the manufacturer.
How temperature sensitive the camera is with reduced exposure time was also studied.
A visualising plot was provided with a conclusion that important temperature information
was lost with reduced exposure time making it critical to set a boundary for how short
the exposure time is allowed to be dependent of how temperature variant a viewed scene
27

28
is.
The motion blur effect appear when the camera is viewing an object moving at high
speed. This was investigated by dropping a steel ball and capturing video sequences for
a reduced exposure time. It was concluded that the motion blur effect is significantly
reduced with shorter exposure time while still maintaining an acceptable amount of
image quality. For very short exposure times, a signal memory, displayed as a ghosting
effect of the moving object, is visible beacuse of the slow operation of the camera. It
is important to set a boundary for how short the exposure time should be to reduce
the motion blur effect while still maintaining important thermal information and image
quality.
Finally, Thermal imaging technology is widely used in many applications as mentioned
in chapter 1 and this work increased the possibility to facilitate the use of microbolometer
technology in applications were high speed imaging are essential. There is a possibility
to integrate a microbolometer camera with an implemented high speed shutter in the
infrared imaging system for a fighter jet or a helicopter to identify objects with high
precision and with small amount of motion blur.

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[3] Uncooled detectors for thermal imaging cameras. http://www.flir.com/
uploadedFiles/Eurasia/Cores_and_Components/Technical_Notes/uncooled%
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