Equivalent Calibration Method Based on a Blackbody Baffle Substitution for a Large External Surface-Source Blackbody

Abstract

Highly accurate measurements of infrared systems cannot be achieved without precise radiometric calibrations. In order to correctly interpret and process infrared images and monitor the performance of infrared cameras, their radiometric calibration is also required periodically. In this paper, an equivalent calibration method is proposed based on an internal blackbody baffle. It is used for the replacement of a large surface-source blackbody covering the aperture for the field calibration of large-aperture equipment. Subsequently, the expressions of the equivalent calibration conversion function (ECCF) are derived based on the grayscale response of the camera and the calibration models of the two methods, and experimental measurements and fits are performed using a cooled mid-wave infrared camera. The results show that the measured functional form is consistent with the physical meaning. Moreover, in the target imaging experiments, the results of the inversion using the equivalent calibration conversion function and the results of the direct calibration of the external blackbody are largely consistent with the average error of 0.198% between the two, and the maximum error is within 1%. The maximum error between the inversion result of radiation brightness and the actual value of the target is 6.29%, and the accuracy fully meets the radiometric measurement requirements.