Impacts And Mitigation Strategies Of Sun Exposure On Uncooled Microbolometer Image Sensors

This paper provides results from testing and analysis of sun exposure effects on amorphous silicon (a-Si) microbolometers and vanadium oxide (VOX) microbolometers. Gain and offset changes for each detector type is provided. Results from different sun exposure levels corresponding to different geographic locations and time of year are presented. Data associated with increasing exposure duration and number of exposures is presented. The time constants associated with the sun exposure effects are also provided. Potential mitigation processes and algorithms are explored reducing the impact on image quality. The effectiveness of mitigation processes and algorithms is presented.