Leading-edge developments of infrared vision for demanding scientific applications

红外成像对于材料的无损检测和被检测场景的温度映射是一种有价值的工具。基本上，观测是以被动或主动模式来实现的。被动模式在于利用场景自然发射的红外辐射分布。在主动模式下，需要外部热或光源来扰乱被观察场景的自然平衡，并在感兴趣的特征和背景之间产生红外辐射差异(热或非热)。红外视觉在检测和解释阶段仍然面临一些限制，特别是在要求苛刻的应用方面。拟议研究的短期目标着眼于探索解决一些关键问题的新方法；它们符合并确保我们研究活动的长期目标的连续性。目前拟议的研究计划为以下原创和有价值的活动提供了前景广阔的潜力：1)复杂形状场景的红外检测：目标是恢复被检测的表面几何形状，并校正在热无损测试中获得的热图像，以便以合适的方式完成对隐藏缺陷的检测；2)高速传热的红外检测：目标是使用频闪技术人为地提高红外成像仪的表观帧速率；3)微尺度场景的红外检测：利用超分辨率的新趋势，预见创新的发展。中心目标是微尺度热成像；4)远红外(太赫兹)检查：太赫兹领域的最新进展将使我们的红外视觉系统能够适应太赫兹测量；这将有利于我们在无损检测方面的活动；以及5)红外多光谱检查：目标在于通过开发一种硅基结构的层析成像检查方法来跟踪我们在多光谱领域的活动。本申请中提出的活动的意义有两个方面。首先，工作的基础有很强的理论基础；其次，预期的成果可以很好地在各个行业中应用。

Infrared (IR) imaging is a valuable tool for the nondestructive testing (NDT) of materials and the temperature mapping of the scenes under inspection. Basically, the observation is implemented either with a passive or active mode. The passive mode consists in exploiting the IR radiation distribution as naturally emitted by a scene. In the active mode, an external heat or light source is required to perturb the natural equilibrium of the scene under observation and produce IR radiation differences (thermal or non-thermal) between the features of interest and the background. IR vision still faces several limitations at both the detection and interpretation stages, in particular for demanding applications. Short-term objectives of the proposed research are oriented towards the investigation of new ways for solving some of the key issues; they are in agreement with and ensure the continuity of the long-term goals of our research activities. The current proposed research program provides promising potential for the following original and valuable activities: 1) IR inspection of scenes with 3D complex shapes: the objective is to recover the inspected surface geometry and to correct the thermal images acquired during a thermal NDT test so that the detection of hidden defects is completed in a suitable way; 2) IR inspection of high speed heat transfer: the goal is to use stroboscopic techniques to artificially increase the apparent frame rate of our IR imagers; 3) IR inspection of microscale scenes: innovative development is foreseen by using the new trends in super resolution. The central goal is microscale thermal imaging; 4) Very far infrared (Terahertz) inspection: the recent progress in the terahertz field would allow the adaptation of our IR vision systems to terahertz measurement; this would be beneficial for our activities in NDT; and 5) IR multispectral inspection: the objective consists in pursuing our activities in the multispectral field by developing a tomography inspection method for silicon based structures. The significance of the activities proposed in this application is two-fold. First, the basis of the work has a strong theoretical foundation; and secondly, the expected results could be well applied in various industries.