Infrared microbolometer sensors and their application in automotive safety

Recently the emergence of a new generation of infrared sensors the microbolometer technology - based on an infrared thermal detection mechanism which is particularly suited to operate at ambient temperature has opened the opportunity for achieving low cost infrared imaging systems for both military and commercial applications. In a first part, this paper gives an overview of this challenging technology highlighting the main characteristics of the sensors developed by LETI that are particularly relevant to automotive applications. A special highlight on recent results concerning the 160x120 focal plane array with a pixel pitch of 35mum is given. In a second part, the use of this technology in automotive safety field is illustrated through an application of detection of moving objects in front of a vehicle. The results shows that infrared sensors based on well-designed microbolometers represent a real middle-term alternative to usual video sensors.