Real Time Infrared Detection of Surface Current Density Distributions

The detection and accurate measurement by probes of surface current density distributions is a tedious and costly experimental process. A technique for the rapid measurement of the magnitude of these distributions by an infrared scanner is presented. By utilizing the small but significant 12R heating effects of the surface current on antennas and scatterers with prepared surfaces, thermal distributions are measured and quantized into various color levels and presented on a color-TV monitor. The measurements and color quantized results are compared with actual probe measurements.