Thermal anomaly detection

A thermal analysis system comprising:

• an infrared (IR) camera module capable of receiving IR radiation from a target scene and generating corresponding IR image data representative of the heat pattern across the target scene based on the received IR radiation;
• a memory in communication with the IR camera module;
• an auxiliary measurement device configured to generate measurement data representative of at least one parameter of the target scene
• a processor in communication with the auxiliary measurement device, the IR camera module, and the memory, the processor being configured to:
• (a) at a plurality of times, capture thermal image data from a target scene using the IR camera module and acquire measurement data from the auxiliary measurement device at approximately the same time as capturing the thermal image data;
• and
• (b) generate a statistical thermal profile of the target scene based on the thermal image data captured at the plurality of times;
• wherein
• the statistical thermal profile comprises, for each of a plurality of regions in the thermal image data, at least two statistical parameters representative of the typical thermal behavior in the target scene in each of the plurality of regions, and
• generating the statistical thermal profile comprises associating the captured thermal image data with an operating condition based on the acquired measurement data and generating a statistical thermal profile corresponding to the operating condition.

A thermal analysis system comprising:

• an infrared (IR) camera module capable of receiving IR radiation from a target scene and generating corresponding IR image data representative of the heat pattern across the target scene based on the received IR radiation;
• a memory in communication with the IR camera module;
• a processor in communication with the IR camera module and the memory, the processor being configured to:
• (a) at a plurality of times, capture thermal image data from a target scene using the IR camera module;
• and
• (b) generate a statistical thermal profile of the target scene based on the thermal image data captured at the plurality of times;
• wherein
• the statistical thermal profile comprises, for each of a plurality of regions in the thermal image data, at least two statistical parameters representative of the typical thermal behavior in the target scene in each of the plurality of regions;
• and
• the processing steps of (a) capturing thermal image data from a target scene using the IR camera module and (b) generating a statistical thermal profile of the target scene based on the captured thermal image data comprise:
• capturing thermal image data;
• determining the at least two statistical parameters from the captured thermal image data;
• aggregating the determined statistical parameters from the captured thermal image data;
• generating the statistical thermal profile using the aggregated statistical parameters;
• and
• discarding the captured thermal image data.