A METHOD OF CALCULATING THE OPERATION RANGE OF THERMAL IMAGE DEVICE BASED ON MINIMUM RESOLVABLE TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE
315 viewsKeywords:
Thermal image; Operating range; MRTD.Abstract
Thermal imaging devices are increasingly being used extensively in the military for surveillance and observation. There are many methods to calculate and evaluate the observation distance of thermal imaging devices, both theoretical and practical, with a range of different advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, the method of calculating the operating distance of thermal imaging device: Detection distance, identification and discrimination based on the minimum resolvable temperature difference (MRTD) measured in the laboratory according to STANAG- 4347 standard of NATO is presented. The method is applied to calculate the observation distance for the thermal imaging channel of a mixed day and night gunner viewfinder for a T-54B (T55) tanks.
References
[1]. STANAG 4347 – “Definition of static range performance for thermal imaging systems”, NATO, 1995
[2]. Krzysztof Chrzanowski: “Testing Thermal Imagers – Practical guidebook”, Military University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland, 2010.
[3]. Holst G.C., “Infrared Imaging System Testing”, Vol.4, Chapt. 4 in The Infrared & Electro-Optical Handbook, Michael C. Dudzik ed, SPIE 1993.
[4]. Piet Bijl. Alexander Toet, J. Mathieu Valeton, “Electro-Optical Imaging System Performance Measurement”, in Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering, pp. 443-452, Marcel Dekker Inc., New York, 2003.
[5]. J. G. Vortman, A. Bar-Lev, “Improved minimum resolvable temperature difference model for infrared imaging system”, Optical Engineering, Vol.26 No. 6, pp 492-498, 1987.
[6]. Krzysztof Chrzanowski, “A minimum resolvable temperature difference model for simplified analysis”, Infrared Physics Vol. 31. No. 4, pp. 313-318, 1991.
[7]. ASTM E1213-97, “Standard Test Method for Minimum Resolvable Temperature Difference for Thermal Imaging Systems”, 1997.
[8]. Joseph Kostrzewa, John Long, John H. Graff, and John David Vincent "TOD versus MRT when evaluating thermal imagers that exhibit dynamic performance", Proc. SPIE 5076, Infrared Imaging Systems:Design, Analysis, Modeling, and Testing XIV, August 2003.
