Patent ID: 8158942

Claim:
A device for detecting infrared radiation comprising: a substrate; a matrix of at least one line of elements for detecting said infrared radiation, each of said elements comprising a resistive imaging bolometer, said matrix being formed above the substrate; a read circuit for applying electrical stimuli to each imaging bolometer of said matrix to form an analog electrical signal constituting an image of said infrared radiation impinging on said matrix, a probe for measuring the temperature in one point of the substrate; an analog-to-digital converter for converting the analog electrical signals formed by the read circuit and the probe into digital values; a data processing unit comprising: a first memory space for storing digital values NC(i,j) corresponding to electrical signals from the matrix of imaging bolometers exposed to a uniform scene at the measured temperature of the substrate; a second memory space for storing a single set of parameters of a predetermined physical model of the electrical signals formed by the read circuit and corresponding to an exposure of the matrix of imaging bolometers to a uniform scene of temperature substantially equal to the substrate temperature; and a central processing unit for: correcting the digital electrical signal formed from each imaging bolometer according to the relation: N corr ( i,j ) = N brut ( i,j ) − NC ( i,j ) + NC where: N brut (i,j) is the digital electrical signal from said bolometer, N corr ,(i,j) is the corrected digital electrical signal of said bolometer, and NC is the mean value of the digital values NC(i,j) stored in said first memory space; computing digital values NC(i,j) corresponding to the exposure of the matrix of imaging bolometers to a uniform scene of temperature substantially equal to the measured substrate temperature based on said single set of parameters; and overwriting said computed digital values NC(i,j) in said first memory space.