Project BRIGHTER

Micro-bolometer sensors are compact, light, low-power, reliable, and affordable infrared imaging components. They are ahead of the cooled infrared sensors for these criteria but lag behind them in terms of performance: - Existing micro-bolometer technologies have thermal time constants around 10 msec. This is more than 10 times that of cooled detectors. - Moreover, there is no multispectral micro-bolometer sensor available today for applications such as absolute thermography and optical gas imaging. BRIGHTER will develop two new classes of micro-bolometer solutions to reduce the performance gap with their cooled counterparts: - Fast thermal micro-bolometer imaging solutions with a time constant 2 to 4 times faster than that of today’s micro-bolometer technologies. Read-out integrated circuits able to operate up to several hundred frames per second will also be investigated. - Multi-spectral micro-bolometer solutions with at least access at the pixel level to two different wavelengths. The developments will focus on pixel technology, Read Out Integrated Circuits, low-power edge image signal processing electronics, optics, and image treatment algorithms. All stakeholders of the value chain are involved: academics, RTO, micro-bolometer manufacturers, algorithm developers, camera integrators, and end users. They will collaborate to define the best trade-offs for all use cases. The two new classes of products that will spring from BRIGHTER will generate concrete benefits. They will make it possible to save on material and energy in the manufacturing sector, perform efficient and affordable monitoring of infrastructures and trains, contribute to autonomous vehicle sensor suites, decrease the road casualties among Vulnerable Road Users, and better control gas emissions in cities and industrial areas. These new usages served by the European industry will allow Europe to increase its market share in the infrared imaging industry.