The infrared thermal imaging module has a 16x4 resolution array temperature sensor (MLX90621), which can detect the temperature of the object with an accuracy of ±1°C ±3% * |To-Ta|, Where To is the measured surface temperature of the object, and Ta is the temperature of the sensor itself. The module can use the I2C protocol to obtain low-resolution images from the camera. The field of view (FOV) of this camera is 60°x16°, the temperature measurement range is -40°C～300°C, and the working temperature is that the sensor's Ta value is between -40°~85°.

How Does Thermal Imaging Work?

All objects emit some amount of infrared radiation. This IR thermal imaging camera has a sensitive heat sensor that can detect tiny differences in temperature from the objects in the surrounding. Then it collects this radiation information from the objects and creates an electronic image that is based on the temperature difference information. The hotter an object is, the more infrared radiation it produces. However, this Infrared light is invisible to the naked eye and if the intensity is too high, it can be felt as heat. 

This module can be connected to an MCU using the I2C interface. However, it needs an MCU that has over 20000 bytes of RAM to drive the camera. As a matter of fact, Dev boards like Arduino UNO cannot be used with this Sensor camera due to its lower ability of calculation. We recommend you choose Arch Mix as an MCU to control the camera because it really has an excellent performance to process the complex data from the IR sensor camera.