Temperature reconstruction of infrared images with motion deblurring

Abstract. Infrared images of an uncooled microbolometer camera can show significant blurring effects while recording a moving object. The electrical signal in the pixel of a microbolometer detector decays exponentially; hence, the moving object is mapped to more pixels resulting in a blurred image. Not only the contrast is corrupted by the motion, but also the temperature of the object seems to be significantly lower. In this paper, it is shown how such images can be deblurred and the true temperature with a good approximation restored. Since the detection mechanism of a microbolometer camera is different from complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) or charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras, also the point-spread function (PSF) needed for the deblurring restoration is different. It is shown how the exponential coefficient of the PSF can be calculated if the motion speed and the camera resolution are known, or otherwise how it can be estimated from the image itself. Experimental examples are presented for motion deblurring used to restore images with linear or rotational motion.