Radiometric thermal camera
Leslah Garland 9 August 2023 
Teledyne FLIR has announced the release of its Lepton 3.1R, and says it is the world’s first radiometric thermal camera module with a 95° field of view (FOV), 160 x 120 resolution, and a scene dynamic range of up to 400°C.
The company says the 3.1R model maintains the same compact and low-power form factor that made the Lepton family of thermal camera modules the best-selling in the world for mobile, small electronics, and uncrewed systems.
Mike Walters, Vice President, Product Management, Teledyne FLIR said: “The revolutionary Lepton was the world’s first thermal micro camera module integrated into millions of devices from ruggedised smartphones to drones. Lepton 3.1R can now propel advancements in cost-saving and lifesaving unattended products ranging from early fire monitoring of critical machinery, electrical switchgear, and data centres to IoT products for smart factory, occupancy monitoring, smart homes, smart appliances, and even elderly care applications.”
The Lepton 3.1R is a drop-in enhancement for existing Lepton-based products. It incorporates the same visual object and space perception interface (VoSPI), inter-integrated circuit (I2C), and electrical and mechanical form and fit as predecessor Leptons to simplify development. Furthermore, the company says the Lepton continues to be the lowest-cost focal plane array (FPA) based thermal sensor on the market.
All Lepton modules include thermal sensitivity of <50 mK for an uncooled micro thermal camera. Lepton features many proprietary technologies, including wafer-level detector packaging, wafer-scale micro-optics, a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and a low-cost, easy-to-integrate camera package. The Lepton family also includes integrated digital thermal image processing and radiometry, the ability to provide the temperature of every pixel in the scene.
To help reduce development costs and shorten time to market, users can take advantage of an online Lepton integration toolbox with application notes and source code for testing on Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi, and BeagleBone.
