FLIR Systems has developed a thermal imaging camera core that is small enough to be used in an iPhone mobile phone case.
The Lepton thermal imaging camera core uses innovative technology, high volume manufacturing techniques, and commercial scale to deliver a price point that is an order of magnitude below current thermal camera cores.
Similar in size, weight, and power consumption to a conventional CMOS cell phone camera module, Lepton is the world's smallest microbolometer-based thermal imaging camera core currently available.
FLIR will use Lepton in new and existing products across many vertical markets, with the first commercial use in the new FLIR ONE thermal imaging smartphone accessory.
Lepton has also been designed for easy integration into third party products, such as smartphones, tablets, diagnostic tools, automobiles, toys, building controls, process equipment, security systems, machine vision systems, and advanced gaming devices.
OEMs around the world can benefit from the fully-exportable Lepton core, which generates high-quality, fully-processed thermal images through common standard interfaces.
Lepton uses multiple proprietary technologies, including wafer level detector packaging, a wafer level micro-optic lens, and a custom integrated circuit that supports all camera functions on a single integrated low power chip. These and other innovations are reflected in more than 100 new patent filings worldwide related to Lepton technologies, processes, and applications.
The new Lepton core facilitates accurate temperature measurements and is fully compatible with FLIR's patented Multi-Spectral Dynamic Imaging technology, or MSX, which significantly enhances the thermal image fidelity by combining it with data from a visible-light sensor.
"FLIR is committed to the development of lower cost, user friendly thermal sensing technologies to enhance vision and measurement beyond light. Lepton represents our latest, most dramatic step toward our vision of becoming 'the world's sixth sense'," said Andy Teich, President and CEO of FLIR.
For more information, www.flir.com/lepton