Shock rejection & ambient temperature compensation mechanism for uncooled micocantilever thermal detector

Abstract

This paper presents a mechanism that involves the integration of a pixel blind to infrared (IR) radiation into a focal plane array (FPA) for thermal detection. The blind pixel serves as a reference capacitor while scanning the FPA active pixels. In harsh environment conditions (e.g. shocks and wide changes in ambient temperature), this mechanism yields down to a 0.83% percent error in the measured signal which is demonstrated here by simulations. The active and blind pixels design, fabrication process, and materials selection are discussed with the aid of finite element analysis.