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Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2015) | Viewed by 52739

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Special Issue Editor

Professor Robert H. Hadfield

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Guest Editor

School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK
Interests: infrared single-photon detection; superconducting single-photon detectors; cryogenic systems; advanced photon-counting applications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Human vision is limited to a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared photodetection technologies dramatically augment our visual perception, allowing us to see through fog and smoke, peer into the depths of space and pick up faint fluorescence signatures from living cells. This Sensors Special Issue Frontiers in infrared photodetection will capture a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in infrared photodetection technologies, including emerging device paradigms, techniques and applications.

Topics of interest:

Near- to mid-infrared detectors, focal plane arrays cameras and bolometers
Infrared low light level and photon-counting detectors
Emerging device paradigms, such as novel semiconductor materials, graphene and two dimensional materials, superconductors, bioinspired detectors, frequency upconversion detection schemes.
Ancillary technology, including optical coupling strategies, filters, readout circuits and practical cryogenic platforms for infrared detectors
Frontier sensing applications in infrared photodetection: remote sensing, imaging, ranging, infrared fluorescence, spectroscopy, fault testing in integrated circuits.

Within the scope of the Special Issue, authors are encouraged to submit review articles, full-length technical articles and rapid communications. Submissions should indicate clearly how the work addresses current challenges in infrared photodetection. Authors are welcome to contact the Guest Editor to discuss outline submissions.

Prof. Dr. Robert H. Hadfield
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

Infrared detector
Photodetector
Single-photon detector
Photon counting
Focal plane array
Infrared sensing
Imaging
Remote sensing
LIDAR
Spectroscopy

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

796 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Infrared Thermography to Evaluate Heat Tolerance in Different Genetic Groups of Lambs

by Concepta McManus, Eliandra Bianchini, Tiago Do Prado Paim, Flavia Gontijo De Lima, José Braccini Neto, Marlos Castanheira, Geisa Isilda Ferreira Esteves, Caio Cesar Cardoso and Vanessa Calderaro Dalcin

Sensors 2015, 15(7), 17258-17273; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150717258 - 16 Jul 2015

Cited by 34 | Viewed by 5903

Abstract

Heat stress is considered a limiting factor for sheep production. We used information from physiological characteristics linked to heat tolerance to determine whether infrared thermography temperatures were able to separate groups of animals and determine the most important variables in this differentiation. Forty-eight four-month-old male lambs from eight genetic groups were used. Physiological (rectal temperature–RT, heart rate–HR, respiratory rate–RR) and blood traits, infrared thermography temperatures, heat tolerance indices, body measurements, weight and carcass traits were measured. Statistical analyses included variance, correlations, factor, discrimination and regression. Observing the correlations between physiological characteristics (RT, RR and HR) with temperatures measured by infrared thermography, regions for further studies should include the mean temperature of flank, nose and rump. Results show that there are strong relationships between thermograph measurements and RR, RT and HR in lambs, which are suggested to be directly correlated with heat tolerance capacity of the different genetic groups evaluated in this study. The assessment of body surface temperature measured by the thermograph could be used as a noninvasive tool to assess heat tolerance of the animals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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4319 KiB

Open AccessArticle

HyperCube: A Small Lensless Position Sensing Device for the Tracking of Flickering Infrared LEDs

by Thibaut Raharijaona, Paul Mignon, Raphaël Juston, Lubin Kerhuel and Stéphane Viollet

Sensors 2015, 15(7), 16484-16502; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150716484 - 08 Jul 2015

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 8037

Abstract

An innovative insect-based visual sensor is designed to perform active marker tracking. Without any optics and a field-of-view of about 60°, a novel miniature visual sensor is able to locate flickering markers (LEDs) with an accuracy much greater than the one dictated by the pixel pitch. With a size of only 1 cm3 and a mass of only 0.33 g, the lensless sensor, called HyperCube, is dedicated to 3D motion tracking and fits perfectly with the drastic constraints imposed by micro-aerial vehicles. Only three photosensors are placed on each side of the cubic configuration of the sensing device, making this sensor very inexpensive and light. HyperCube provides the azimuth and elevation of infrared LEDs flickering at a high frequency (>1 kHz) with a precision of 0.5°. The minimalistic design in terms of small size, low mass and low power consumption of this visual sensor makes it suitable for many applications in the field of the cooperative flight of unmanned aerial vehicles and, more generally, robotic applications requiring active beacons. Experimental results show that HyperCube provides useful angular measurements that can be used to estimate the relative position between the sensor and the flickering infrared markers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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2126 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Evaluation of the Pedestrian Classification in a Multi-Domain Multi-Modality Setup

by Alina Miron, Alexandrina Rogozan, Samia Ainouz, Abdelaziz Bensrhair and Alberto Broggi

Sensors 2015, 15(6), 13851-13873; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150613851 - 12 Jun 2015

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 6093

Abstract

The objective of this article is to study the problem of pedestrian classification across different light spectrum domains (visible and far-infrared (FIR)) and modalities (intensity, depth and motion). In recent years, there has been a number of approaches for classifying and detecting pedestrians in both FIR and visible images, but the methods are difficult to compare, because either the datasets are not publicly available or they do not offer a comparison between the two domains. Our two primary contributions are the following: (1) we propose a public dataset, named RIFIR , containing both FIR and visible images collected in an urban environment from a moving vehicle during daytime; and (2) we compare the state-of-the-art features in a multi-modality setup: intensity, depth and flow, in far-infrared over visible domains. The experiments show that features families, intensity self-similarity (ISS), local binary patterns (LBP), local gradient patterns (LGP) and histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), computed from FIR and visible domains are highly complementary, but their relative performance varies across different modalities. In our experiments, the FIR domain has proven superior to the visible one for the task of pedestrian classification, but the overall best results are obtained by a multi-domain multi-modality multi-feature fusion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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6668 KiB

Open AccessArticle

High-Speed Incoming Infrared Target Detection by Fusion of Spatial and Temporal Detectors

by Sungho Kim

Sensors 2015, 15(4), 7267-7293; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150407267 - 25 Mar 2015

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 8459

Abstract

This paper presents a method for detecting high-speed incoming targets by the fusion of spatial and temporal detectors to achieve a high detection rate for an active protection system (APS). The incoming targets have different image velocities according to the target-camera geometry. Therefore, single-target detector-based approaches, such as a 1D temporal filter, 2D spatial filter and 3D matched filter, cannot provide a high detection rate with moderate false alarms. The target speed variation was analyzed according to the incoming angle and target velocity. The speed of the distant target at the firing time is almost stationary and increases slowly. The speed varying targets are detected stably by fusing the spatial and temporal filters. The stationary target detector is activated by an almost zero temporal contrast filter (TCF) and identifies targets using a spatial filter called the modified mean subtraction filter (M-MSF). A small motion (sub-pixel velocity) target detector is activated by a small TCF value and finds targets using the same spatial filter. A large motion (pixel-velocity) target detector works when the TCF value is high. The final target detection is terminated by fusing the three detectors based on the threat priority. The experimental results of the various target sequences show that the proposed fusion-based target detector produces the highest detection rate with an acceptable false alarm rate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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2658 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Human Detection Based on the Generation of a Background Image by Using a Far-Infrared Light Camera

by Eun Som Jeon, Jong-Suk Choi, Ji Hoon Lee, Kwang Yong Shin, Yeong Gon Kim, Toan Thanh Le and Kang Ryoung Park

Sensors 2015, 15(3), 6763-6788; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150306763 - 19 Mar 2015

Cited by 41 | Viewed by 11752

Abstract

The need for computer vision-based human detection has increased in fields, such as security, intelligent surveillance and monitoring systems. However, performance enhancement of human detection based on visible light cameras is limited, because of factors, such as nonuniform illumination, shadows and low external light in the evening and night. Consequently, human detection based on thermal (far-infrared light) cameras has been considered as an alternative. However, its performance is influenced by the factors, such as low image resolution, low contrast and the large noises of thermal images. It is also affected by the high temperature of backgrounds during the day. To solve these problems, we propose a new method for detecting human areas in thermal camera images. Compared to previous works, the proposed research is novel in the following four aspects. One background image is generated by median and average filtering. Additional filtering procedures based on maximum gray level, size filtering and region erasing are applied to remove the human areas from the background image. Secondly, candidate human regions in the input image are located by combining the pixel and edge difference images between the input and background images. The thresholds for the difference images are adaptively determined based on the brightness of the generated background image. Noise components are removed by component labeling, a morphological operation and size filtering. Third, detected areas that may have more than two human regions are merged or separated based on the information in the horizontal and vertical histograms of the detected area. This procedure is adaptively operated based on the brightness of the generated background image. Fourth, a further procedure for the separation and removal of the candidate human regions is performed based on the size and ratio of the height to width information of the candidate regions considering the camera viewing direction and perspective projection. Experimental results with two types of databases confirm that the proposed method outperforms other methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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10967 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Plasmonic Structure Integrated Single-Photon Detector Configurations to Improve Absorptance and Polarization Contrast

by Mária Csete, Gábor Szekeres, András Szenes, Anikó Szalai and Gábor Szabó

Sensors 2015, 15(2), 3513-3539; https://doi.org/10.3390/s150203513 - 03 Feb 2015

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6100

Abstract

Configurations capable of maximizing both the absorption component of system detection efficiency and the achievable polarization contrast were determined for 1550 nm polarized light illumination of different plasmonic structure integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) consisting of p = 264 nm and P = 792 nm periodic niobium nitride (NbN) patterns on silica substrate. Global effective NbN absorptance maxima appear in case of p/s-polarized light illumination in S/P-orientation (γ = 90°/0° azimuthal angle) and the highest polarization contrast is attained in S-orientation of all devices. Common nanophotonical origin of absorptance enhancement is collective resonance on nanocavity gratings with different profiles, which is promoted by coupling between localized modes in quarter-wavelength metal-insulator-metal nanocavities and laterally synchronized Brewster-Zenneck-type surface waves in integrated SNSPDs possessing a three-quarter-wavelength-scaled periodicity. The spectral sensitivity and dispersion characteristics reveal that device design specific optimal configurations exist. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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4937 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Frequency Band Pyroelectric Sensors

by Chun-Ching Hsiao and Sheng-Yi Liu

Sensors 2014, 14(12), 22180-22198; https://doi.org/10.3390/s141222180 - 25 Nov 2014

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5333

Abstract

A methodology is proposed for designing a multi-frequency band pyroelectric sensor which can detect subjects with various frequencies or velocities. A structure with dual pyroelectric layers, consisting of a thinner sputtered ZnO layer and a thicker aerosol ZnO layer, proved helpful in the development of the proposed sensor. The thinner sputtered ZnO layer with a small thermal capacity and a rapid response accomplishes a high-frequency sensing task, while the thicker aerosol ZnO layer with a large thermal capacity and a tardy response is responsible for low-frequency sensing tasks. A multi-frequency band pyroelectric sensor is successfully designed, analyzed and fabricated in the present study. The range of the multi-frequency sensing can be estimated by means of the proposed design and analysis to match the thicknesses of the sputtered and the aerosol ZnO layers. The fabricated multi-frequency band pyroelectric sensor with a 1 μm thick sputtered ZnO layer and a 20 μm thick aerosol ZnO layer can sense a frequency band from 4000 to 40,000 Hz without tardy response and low voltage responsivity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Infrared Photodetection)

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