how do thermal cameras even work
In: Technology
Everything is electromagnetic wave. From radio waves to microwaves to infrared radiation to visible light to ultraviolet radiation to X-rays to Gamma rays. Radars, WiFi, cellphone signals, TV signals, lasers and so forth.
All those things receive, broadcast or are sensitive to particular frequency of that wave.
Sensors in thermal cameras are simply sensitive to infrared radiation (portion of EM wave). They’re basically like any other device, just tuned to react to this particular frequency (and turn it into electric signals which lights up pixels on the screen). While sensor in your smartphone (photo camera) reacts to visible light and antenna in phone reacts to electromagnetic signals between 700 MHz and 2.6GHz, commonly known as 4G and 2.4GHz and 5GHz which we use for WiFi internet.
Radio is radio is radio. It’s just what you’re trying to catch and how you can use it.
For example, our eyes are just like digital photo cameras, optic cells in eyes generate electric signals when hit with frequencies of visible light of an electromagnetic wave and send those signals via nerves into our brains. If they were tuned just a bit different to accept frequencies of infrared, we could have thermal vision (pretty sure that’ll be a matter of surgery or robotic implants in the future). Some animals (some beetles, bats and snakes) can actually see thermals.
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