seek mosaic core performance analysis report

© 2021

Technical Reports

©PISEO 2021 | www.piseo.fr | Seek Thermal S309SP Analysis Report

Seek Thermal S309SP Camera

Core Performance

Analysis

2

INTRODUCTION

• Thanks to multiple drivers, the market for infra-red thermal imaging cameras and modules isexpanding rapidly with a multiplicity of products on offer. There is, therefore, a need for users,integrators, and sensor manufacturers to be able to discriminate between available productsbased on accurate and independent assessments of their performance and features.

• This report is the third of a kind that will help thermal imaging camera and module marketactors to better understand the characteristics of such products, enabling better strategic decisionmaking.

• More reports will follow soon, which will allow fair comparisons of product featuresand performance.

• The following cameras and modules have either already been analyzed or are planned:InfiRay T3S camera module : published

Flir Boson 640 Pro camera (USA): published

Seek thermal module QVGA 12µm (USA): published

InfiRay Micro 3 (China): available Q4 2021

Hikvision camera QQVGA 17µm (China): planned

Teledyne Dalsa GXF (Canada): planned


3

OBJECTIVES OF THE REPORT

• This report aims at providing a comprehensive and independent analysis of the mainfeatures, performance, and imaging system architecture of the Seek Thermal S309SPCamera Core.

• The analysis has been based on physical measurements, calculations, simulations, andobservations realized in PISEO’s lab compared to data provided in the datasheet.

• The report presents :

• An analysis of the user functions of the camera.

• An analysis of the measured performance parameters of the embedded microbolometric sensor.

• An analysis of the measured thermometric performance and optical architecture of the camera.

• An analysis of the sensor correction functions and algorithms.

• An analysis of the image processing flow from sensor to image as well as an assessment of imagequality.

• Our opinion of the camera’s features and performance.

• A fair comparison of the performance against other marketed products.


4

AUTHORS OF THE REPORT


Dr Olivier Andrieu – Innovation Leader and System Architect - Piséo

Olivier ANDRIEU is in charge of technical expertise and innovation projects at Piséo. He has a degree in engineeringand a Ph.D. in physics from the INPG Graduate School. His career has allowed him to carry out various responsibilitiesin innovation in the automotive sector in connection with sensors and battery management systems as well as withinPhilips Lighting, where he acted as a system architect. He has supervised the design of numerous photonic systems fordifferent sectors which have been commercialized. He has also performed many technical analyses of photonic systemsand published several reports in collaboration with Yole Développement’s teams.

Grégory Duchêne - Sr Optical Designer, illumination, detection and imaging systems - PiséoGrégory Duchêne is in charge of advanced optical systems studies and analyzes at Piséo. He has an engineering degreefrom the Institut d’Optique Graduate School (IOGS). He has successfully designed the optics of many innovativephotonic systems for Piséo’s’ customers. In addition to his strong optical design skills, he has in-depth know-how of

optical metrology of illumination and imaging systems. Grégory Duchêne is our Zemax expert and also teaches opticalsystem design at IOGS.

Lionel Artinyan – Photonic Systems Test Engineer - Piséo

Lionel Artinyan has an engineering degree from the ENSSAT Graduate School and has a strong background in photoniccomponent and system characterization. At Piséo, Lionel is in charge of custom test bench engineering and testrealization. He has participated in the design of many different test benches that include optical devices and controlprograms. Lionel has successfully tested many systems that integrate pulsed light sources such as xenon lamps, LEDs,and laser diodes, as well as imaging sensors.

5

GLOSSARY


• ACE Adaptative Contrast Enhancement

• AGC Automatic Gain Correction

• BiCMOS Bipolar CMOS

• CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor

• DN Digital Number

• DDE Digital Detail Enhancement

• FFC Flat Field Correction

• FOV Field-Of-View

• FPA Focal Plane Area

• FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array

• GUI General User Interface

• IBE Information-Based Equalizer

• INU Image Non-Uniformity

• MRTD Minimum Resolvable Temperature Difference

• MTF Modulation Transfer Function

• NETD Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference

• NUC Non-Uniformity Correction

• NVFFC Non-Volatile Flat Field Correction

• PSF Point Spread Function

• RFPN Residual Fixed Pattern Noise

• ROI Region of Interest

• ROIC Read-out Integrated Circuit

• SCNR Spatial Column Noise Reduction

• SDK Software Development Kit

• SEM Scanning Electron Microscopy

• SFFC Supplemental Flat Field Correction

• SRNR Spatial Row Noise Reduction

• SSN Silent Shutterless NUC

• USB Universal Serial Bus

• UVC USB Video Class

• VOx Vanadium Oxide

66

Table of ContentsPart 1/2


• Introduction 02

• PISEO’s Opinion on the Seek Thermal S309SP 03

• Seek Thermal S309SP IR camera vs others 04

• Objective of the report 05

• About Piséo 06

• Authors of the report 07

• Glossary 08

• Table of contents 09

• Thermal Camera Market Overview 11

• Seek Thermal Company Profile 15

• Camera Presentation, Functionalities and Use 21

o Mosaic core portfolio presentation

o Microbolometric sensor

o Available resources

o Technical characteristics

o Kit description

o Camera Tested

• Seek Thermal SDK and SeekViewer software 36

o Overview

o Information menus

o Temperature Units

o Shutter and Timestamp Control

o Frame Info

o “Filters” menu

o Smoothing

o Sharpening

o Color maps

o Histogram settings

• Image sensor standard characterization methodology 49

o Image sensor characterization

o Blackbody Setup

o MTF measurement

o Responsivity and NETD

o Bad pixel detection and operability

o Non-uniformity correction and RFPN

o Thermographic function

77

Table of Contents

Part 2/2


• Sensor performances characterization 61

o Raw image definition and quality

o Responsivity / NETD / Scene dynamic

o Operability

o Complete temperature range

o Dependence on ambient temperature

o Residual Fixed Pattern Noise

o Thermographic response

o Temperature measurement accuracy

o Modulation transfer function (MTF)

o Rolling Shutter

• Image processing 80

o Image production and characterization

o Image settings

o AGC types

o Histogram Equalization

o Linear Min/Max correction

o Legacy Histogram Equalization

o AGC algorithm comparison

o Shutter functions

o Transient Correction

o Smoothing

o Sharpening

• Conclusion 102

• Comparison of S309P the with other cameras 105

• Piséo Corporate Presentation 108

• Piséo related reports 114

• Contact us 115

8

MOSAIC CORE PORTFOLIO PRESENTATION

Portfolio

• The S309SP is a member of the Mosaic Core product line.

• The camera integrates a 12µm pitch Vanadium Oxide uncooled detector available in 2 resolutions: 200x150 px and320x240 px.

• The module includes image processing and standard communication interfaces.

• It is targeted at integrators for security cameras, test and measurement, public safety, outdoor recreation and much more.

• Each module is equipped with a lens with a specific FOV and depth-of-field. The variety of lenses (8 options) coversFOVs between 15° and 105°.


Source: Seek Thermal

9

• The main technical information is presented on a one-page datasheet, subdivided into major items :

• Global specifications related to sensor properties : technology, sensor resolution, pixel pitch, sensor sensitivity or NETD, frame rate, etc.

• Optical & Mechanical, which details the various possible configurations.

• Thermography.

• Environmental.

• This kind of information is standard amongst uncooled thermal sensor manufacturers. However, we noted that the operability is not specified on the datasheet.

TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Overview


10

• The camera tested by PISEO comes in a kit which consists of:

• Mosaic Core.

• Coprocessor board.

• Baseboard PCB.

• 2 flex ribbon cables to connect the pieces.

• A cushion and a bracket to hold the camera to the baseboard PCB.

• A micro-USB to USB cable.

• However, it is possible to only buy the Mosaic Core and use it with custom electronics. The customer must then design the system around one of the coprocessor options detailed on the next slide.

• Here the baseboard appears as an interface board, not to be confused with the coprocessor.

• Buying only the core can be a cheaper and more modular option when working with integration constraints in complex systems.

KIT DESCRIPTION


(LxWxH) 114mm x 42mm x 42mm

11

• Activating the sharpening filter enhances contrast and the edges of objects.

• Horizontal and vertical lines are more visible as well.

• The images seem noisier.

• This is typical of a sharpening or high-pass filter that is quite sensitive to shutter noise.

• A more detailed technical description is given in the “Image Processing” chapter.

SEEKVIEWER FUNCTIONALITIES

Sharpening


Sharpening OFF – Normal resolution (l) and zoomed (r)

Sharpening ON – Normal resolution (l) and zoomed (r)

12

• Using the SDK documentation, PISEO createdmultiple functions in order to characterize the sensor.

• Calling these functions would return stacks of imageswith flexibility for many settings:

• Stack size.

• Frame rate.

• All Mosaic Core corrections available.

• These functions were then included in our ownacquisition and processing software.

• For the characterization, stacks of 100 images atmaximum frame rate and with deactivated filterswere extracted. This was done at differenttemperatures for different controlled scenes.

IMAGE SENSOR CHARACTERIZATION

Procedure used to retrieve images during image processing


Methodology

Function creation on Visual Studio

PISEO’s software acquiring and processing data

13

• AGC stands for “Automatic Gain Control”. It is a regulating circuit widely used in audio and video systems in order to maintain a suitable signal amplitude.

• The software offers 3 AGC modes for the Mosaic Cores:

• Legacy_HistEQ

• Linear

• HistEQ

• The “Linear AGC Controls” section is only usable when the AGC is set to Linear mode.

• Details of the AGC modes are thoroughly discussed in the image processing chapter.

SEEKVIEWER FUNCTIONALITIES

Histogram settings


14

• A controlled-temperature scene is placed in thefield of view of the camera.

• Represented by a blackbody (HGH)regulated temperature surface;

• Possible to control the surface temperaturefrom -15°C to +150°C;

• Accurate control of the scene temperature:< +/-0.03 °C;

• Temperature uniformity across the surface:0.01 °C @25°C, 0.3°C @ 50°C;

• Stability 0.5mK.

• Climate chamber for ambient temperaturecontrol:

• 0°C to 50°C.

BLACKBODY SETUP

Uniform and controlled temperature with a blackbody


Typical IR Camera test set-up @PISEO’s lab

Methodology

15

1 2 3 4

NETD

(m

K)

Stack #

NETD vs stack number (100 images per stack)

• The NETD measured immediately after power on issignificantly different than the NETD measured afterstabilization. When applying PISEO’s protocol, the stackof images are recorded after power on, giving a highvalue of NETD. After waiting roughly 20 seconds, theNETD drops to 60mK which is closer to the publishedvalues.

• During the same time interval, from power on to lateruse, the responsivity remains stable. The time sensitivityof the NETD is the consequence of the temporal noise ofthe pixels in the first seconds. Images on the left showpixel responsivity and NETD at power on and after 20seconds of stabilization.

• In an interview by Piséo, Seek Thermal has confirmedthis phenomenon and mentioned their procedure includesa warm-up time before measuring the NETD.

NETD DEPENDENCE ON STARTING TIME


(Time)

(11s) (22s) (33s) (44s)

16

RESPONSIVITY / NETD / SCENE DYNAMIC

Complete temperature range -20°C to +100°C

• The responsivity increases when the measuredtemperature increase. The temporal DN noise remainsstable, thus the NETD is lowered at high scenetemperature.

• The increase in the responsivity limits the scenedynamic for high measured temperature.

• This behavior is typical from the technology and hasbeen observed on other thermal imaging sensors.


-20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120

NETD

(m

K)

Responsiv

ity (

counts

/K)

Median scenic temperature (°C)

Responsivity over temperature range

Resp (counts/K)NETD (mK)

-20 30 80 130

Scene d

ynam

ic (

K)

Median scene temperature (°C)

Scene dynamic

T1 (°C) -15 0 20 40 60 80 100T2 (°C) 0 20 40 60 80 100 120

T NETD (°C) 25 25 25 25 25 25 25

Resp (counts/K) 80.8 97.7 120.9 144.6 169.6 194.2 211.7NETD (mK) 555.6 475.8 377.5 321.7 286.3 260.7 219.9Scene dynamic (K) 809 669 541 452 386 337 309

17

IMAGE PROCESSING ANALYSIS

Image settings


Pixel matrix

ROIC,Non-uniformity

correction, Bad pixel correction

Micro-USB Data bus

Shutter

SDK functions (Temperature conversions, AGC, Filters…)

16-bit filtered pre-AGC image

32-bit floating point temperature data

32-bit colorized ARGB data

• The filtered pre-AGC format is available for imaging and supportsactivation by the user of many image settings. These settings aredescribed and analyzed in the following pages :

• Smoothing.

• Sharpening.

• Transient correction.

• Three AGC modes : HistEQ, Linear min/max, LegacyHistEQ.

• Automatic/manual shutter activation.

18

AUTOMATIC GAIN CONTROL

Histogram Equalization – Trim (left and right)

• Setting this parameter helps to prevent situations where a small number of outlier pixels negatively affect thescene’s contrast.


Cold object (0°C)

• On the left, the presence of a cold object makes the rest of the scene blurrier since it is taking a big part ofthe histogram by itself. On the right, we focus the histogram on relatively hot objects (left trim = 0.49) inorder to restore some dynamic and detail to the people in the scene.

19

ABOUT PISÉO


• An Independent Innovation Center specializing in the integration of advanced photonics technologies.

• Supports companies in all sectors of activity in the analysis, design and characterization of innovativeillumination, detection and visualization systems.

• Experience gained from large industrial groups.

• Created in November 2011 as part of the French State Call for Projects for shared innovation platforms.

• 8 industrial shareholders including Yole Développement, GIL-Syndicat du luminaire, Syndicat de l’éclairage,Serma Group, Cluster Lumière.

• Based in Lyon, France.

• 150+ clients (Large groups, ETI, SMEs, Start-ups)

• CIR, CII, and EASYTECH approved.

• Accredited lab (scope @ www.cofrac.fr ).

• 16 people.

http://www.cofrac.fr/

20

OUR MARKETS


AutomotiveAeronautics

Railway

SecurityDefense

Health CareWell-being

ImagingGeneral Lighting

TelecomProcesses

Watchmaking

21

OUR SERVICES AT COMPONENT AND SYSTEM LEVEL


System design and

realization

✓ Application requirements of photonic

systems (UV, VIS, IR)

✓ Concept generation

✓ Feasibility studies

✓ Optical, mechanical, electronic and

software design

✓ Simulations

✓ Thermal management

✓ System integration

✓ Prototyping, assembly, pre-series and

small volume production with partners

✓ Redesign to cost, to quality

✓ Design for reliability

Characterization and test

laboratory

✓ Photometric and colorimetric measurements

(accredited)

✓ Spectral and radiometric measurements (UV,

VIS, IR)

✓ Photobiological and laser risk assessment

(accredited)

✓ Luminance and color maps of displays, light

panels, etc.…

✓ Electrical measurements

✓ Temperature measurements

✓ Characterization of cameras, modules and

imaging sensors (VIS, IR): NUC, NETD,

responsiveness, MTF ...

✓ Materials : reflectance, transmittance,

spectral analysis, BRDF…

Application and technical

analyses

✓ Reverse engineering

✓ Performance analysis

✓ Application and technical reports

✓ Benchmarking of component and system

performance and construction

✓ Regulatory and normative intelligence

✓ Technology intelligence

✓ Patent intelligence

22

OUR TECHNICAL PLATFORMS


Design and analysis tools

➢ Patent pulse

➢ Proprietary physical models

➢ Zemax Optics Studio 20 & Premium (2x)

➢ LightTools 9 (3x)

➢ Radiant Imaging Prosource

➢ Rhino 3D

➢ Solidworks

➢ Python, C ++, Arduino, Labview programming

➢ Algorithmics

➢ 3 computing stations 24 cores, 3.1 GHz

➢ Network of partners in electronics, mechanics, integration and assembly

23

OUR TECHNICAL PLATFORMS

Testing Laboratory


➢ Goniophotometer LMT C-Type GO 2000

➢ Integrating spheres Instrument Systems 2m & GL Optik 50cm

➢ Instrument Systems Spectroradiometers CAS 120 (VIS), CAS140CT (VIS), CAS 140D (300nm-1100nm)

➢ BTS256-EF Gigahertz Optik Spectrophotometer-Colorimeter

➢ Westboro Photonics PF 501A 5Mpx video luminance meter

➢ Radiometric bench Everfine OST 300 (200nm-1600nm)

➢ Power probes and integrating sphere (200nm-1100nm)

➢ Infratek Variocam thermal camera

➢ Blackbody HGH DCN 1000H4

➢ YOKOGAWA WT 3000 power meters

➢ Stabilized and central power supplies: Chroma, TTi, Keithley ...

➢ Partner network (Serma Technologies, labs, etc.)

24

WHAT CHARACTERIZES US


• 250+ customer projects and 5000+ tests carried out.

• Unique combination of expertise and high-level technical means in the design andcharacterization of illumination, detection and imaging systems.

• Very diverse industrial experience.

• Applied and multi-physics approach of integrated systems.

• Network of leading partners.

• Agility.

• Independence and impartiality.

Contact ourSales Team for more information

25

iRAY T3S Thermal Camera Performance Analysis

FLIR Boson Thermal Camera Performance Analysis

Guide Infrared’s 17μm Microbolometer Module by System Plus Consulting

RELATED REPORTS


Thermal Imagers and Detectors 2020 by Yole Développement

iRay Technology 12μm and 17μm Thermal Sensors by System Plus

Consulting

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/iray-t3s-thermal-camera-performance-analysis/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/flir-boson-thermal-camera-performance-analysis/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/guide-infrareds-17%C2%B5m-microbolometer-module/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/thermal-imagers-and-detectors-2020/pk_campaign=w_Thermal_Imager_2020&pk_source=ON24&pk_medium=presentation_relatedreport

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/iray-technology-12%C2%B5m-and-17%C2%B5m-thermal-sensors/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/thermal-imagers-and-detectors-2020/pk_campaign=w_Thermal_Imager_2020&pk_source=ON24&pk_medium=presentation_relatedreport

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/guide-infrareds-17%C2%B5m-microbolometer-module/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/iray-technology-12%C2%B5m-and-17%C2%B5m-thermal-sensors/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/flir-boson-thermal-camera-performance-analysis/

https://www.i-micronews.com/products/iray-t3s-thermal-camera-performance-analysis/

26

Western US & Canada

Steve Laferriere - [email protected]

+ 1 310 600 8267

Eastern US & Canada

Chris Youman - [email protected]

+1 919 607 9839

Europe and Rest of the World

Lizzie Levenez - [email protected]

+49 15 123 544 182

Benelux, UK & Scandinavia

Marine Wybranietz - [email protected]

+49 69 96 21 76 78

India and Rest of Asia

Takashi Onozawa - [email protected]

+81 80 4371 4887

Greater China

Mavis Wang - [email protected]

+886 979 336 809 +86 136 6156 6824

Korea

Peter Ok - [email protected]

+82 10 4089 0233

Japan

Miho Ohtake - [email protected]

+81 34 4059 204

Japan and Singapore

Itsuyo Oshiba - [email protected]

+81 80 3577 3042

Japan

Toru Hosaka – [email protected]

+81 90 1775 3866

GENERAL

› Joël Thomé, General Manager

[email protected] - +33 (0) 6 68 62 49 06

› Marie-Eve Fraisse, Sales

[email protected] - +33 (0) 4 26 83 02 25

› General inquiries: [email protected] - +33 4 72 83 01 80

CONTACT US

mailto:[email protected]













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