Identification and Suppression of Thermal Reflections in Infrared Thermal Imaging

Thermal reflections are a common source of problems in interpreting infrared (IR) thermal images. In particular, atomically smooth surfaces like glass, metals, or wet surfaces, and also brick and concrete, may easily give rise to reflections of infrared radiation from often uncared sources. If unnoticed, these thermal reflections may give rise to misinterpretations of the object temperature. After analyzing the differences between object IR radiation and thermal reflections theoretically, possibilities to suppress or at least identify such reflections by use of IR polarizers are discussed. Theoretical predictions and experimental results are very promising.