Shutterless method for gain nonuniformity correction of microbolometer detectors

In this paper the new method of gain nonuniformity correction of microbolometer detectors is presented. The principle of this method is based on using an additional source of infrared radiation, which provides the excitation to the detector in parallel with the radiation of observed scene. The response of the detector to the excitation is calculated using frequency analysis, and it contains the information about the detector´s gain non-uniformity. This method enables a thermal camera to perform a live gain correction without using a shutter. Besides of theoretical information about the new method, chosen qualitative results of experiments realized at the Institute of Electronics, Technical University of Lodz are shown.