Pyroelectric infrared sensor-based thermometer for monitoring indoor objects

This article describes a system for measuring temperature by monitoring an object’s radiation in the infrared spectrum. Using a measuring device by passing through a data acquisition interface, a long-term observation of the temperature variance of objects on a personal computer by the LabVIEW software is conducted. A special mechanism joined with a pyroelectric infrared ~PIR! sensor, optical chopper, and Fresnel lens is presented in this system. This separable architecture makes the lens easily replaceable and portable. In this study, the PIR sensor into a quantitative measurement for long-term and long-distance applications with calibration equipment based on a blackbody and some electrometers was successfully applied. Experimental results show that the measuring device only has an average error rate of 1.21% in the overall range from 40 to 200 °C, and field of view is 4.58°. The results confirm that noncontacted temperature measurement using a PIR sensor is feasible. © 2003 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1626005#