Active thermal super-resolution based on laser flying spot technique coupled with IR thermography and wavelet transform

Abstract

A super-resolution technique combining the laser flying spot technique with infrared (IR) thermography and wavelet transform is proposed herein. The resolution of thermal images captured by an IR camera is typically limited by the size of its pixels. The objective of this study is to enhance the resolution of such images by using a laser spot with a diameter smaller than a camera pixel. By analysing the thermal response with the wavelet transform and the position of the laser within the camera pixels, this method takes a step towards achieving thermal super-resolution. The paper presents the methodology of this approach along with numerical and experimental examples to demonstrate its effectiveness.