Portable IR thermometer having thermal imaging capability

A portable noncontact thermometer comprising:

• a housing defining an aperture for ingress of incident thermal energy in a field of view;
• a graphical display fixed with respect to said housing;
• a thermopile array including a plurality of thermopile elements, said thermopile array being positioned inside said housing so as to be impinged by said incident thermal energy;
• processing circuitry in electrical communication with said thermopile array, said processing circuitry being operative to produce on said graphical display a thermal image of said field of view;
• said processing circuitry being further operative to determine a temperature of a target location within said field of view based on electrical signals derived from a subset of said thermopile elements;
• and
• wherein said subset of said thermopile elements is a single thermopile element that is located approximately at a center of said thermopile array and occupies greater surface area on said array than other of said thermopile elements.

A noncontact thermometer comprising:

• a housing defining an aperture for ingress of incident thermal energy in a field of view;
• a graphical display;
• a thermopile detector including a thermopile array having a plurality of thermopile elements arranged in rows and columns;
• said thermopile detector further having at least one multiplexer in a common package with said array through which a subset of said thermopile elements are connected;
• processing circuitry in electrical communication with said thermopile detector so as to receive electrical signals from said thermopile elements other than said subset through said at least one multiplexer and from said subset without multiplexing;
• said processing circuitry being operative to produce on said graphical display a thermal image of said field of view;
• and
• said processing circuitry being further operative to determine a temperature of a target location within said field of view based on electrical signals from said subset of said thermopile elements.

A method of detecting temperature of a target location within a field of view, said method comprising steps of:

• (a) providing a thermopile array having a plurality of thermopile elements;
• (b) amplifying electrical signals produced at a subset of said thermopile elements using a narrower bandwidth amplifier to yield amplified non-multiplexed signals;
• (c) multiplexing electrical signals produced at said thermopile elements other than said subset to yield multiplexed signals;
• (d) amplifying said multiplexed signals using a wider bandwidth amplifier to yield amplified multiplexed signals;
• (e) processing said amplified multiplexed signals and said amplified non-multiplexed signals to produce a thermal image of said field of yield;
• and
• (f) processing said amplified non-multiplexed signals to determine temperature of said target location.

A thermopile detector configured as a discrete electronic package, said detector comprising:

• a thermopile array having a plurality of thermopile elements;
• at least one multiplexer located in said package;
• a subset of said thermopile elements being connected to respective output terminals of said package without multiplexing;
• and
• said thermopile elements other than said subset being connected to an output terminal of said package shared with at least one other of said thermopile elements other than said subset via one of said at least one multiplexer.