Patent ID: 11902697
Assignee: ORORATECH GMBH
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H  B | IPC B  H

Claim 14:
15. A method of operating the thermal imager according to claim 1 when aboard a satellite orbiting Earth, when the thermal imager is arranged such that it faces Earth's surface and the rows of IC chips are oriented in perpendicular to a plane spanned by a flight direction of the satellite and a perpendicular to Earth's surface, the method comprising:
setting a sample frequency for capturing readout signals of the array of IC chips such that a field of view, projected on Earth's surface, of a leading row of IC chips at a given sample timing substantially coincides with a field of view, projected on Earth's surface, of an n-th row of IC chips from the leading row of IC chips at an n-th sample timing subsequent to the given sample timing, where n is an integer ranging from 2 to N−1, with N being the number of rows of IC chips in the array of IC chips;
capturing the readout signals of the array of IC chips at a plurality of successive sample timings in accordance with the sample frequency; and
comparing readout signals for one row of IC chips in the pair of non-adjacent rows of IC chips captured at a given sample timing to corresponding readout signals for the other row of IC chips in the pair of non-adjacent rows of IC chips captured at an m-th sample timing subsequent to the given timing, assuming that the other row of IC chips in the pair of non-adjacent rows of IC chips is the m-th row of IC chips from the one row of IC chips in the pair of non-adjacent rows of IC chips, counting all intermediate rows of IC chips.