LumaSense debuts world's first two-color infrared pyrometer with thermal imaging capabilities

COLOGNE, GERMANY: LumaSense Technologies Inc. introduced its integrated ISR 6-TI Advanced today at the Heat Treatment Congress in Cologne.

The ISR 6-TI Advanced is a major breakthrough combining an infrared thermometer (also known as a pyrometer) with infrared imaging capabilities to open new sensing opportunities for heat-dependent manufacturers.

With temperatures approaching 1800 °C, normal "contact" based methods of temperature measurement such as thermocouples will disintegrate. Thus, manufacturers of metals, glass, and other materials manufacturers have long relied on infrared technology.

Infrared technology allows manufacturers to capture precise temperature readings without making physical contact. Such temperature readings are crucial to manufacturing processes affecting product quality, energy consumption, asset life, and personnel safety.

"Materials industries have very small margins and manufacturers constantly have to make the trade-offs as to what will improve production versus adding cost," said LumaSense CEO, Steve Abely. "Now with the ISR 6-TI Advanced, manufacturers have more temperature sensing capability per dollar than ever before," continued Abely.

"The ISR 6-TI Advanced is ideally suited for applications where it is critical to know the temperature across an object, not just one spot," said Daniel Schueftan, Pyrometer Product manager at LumaSense. "Currently, many manufacturers rely on pyrometers to sample temperature spots across a surface and infer uniformity rather than use costlier thermal imagers," continued Schueftan.

Thermal imagers produce temperature-based "pictures" to show the temperature across an object. The ISR 6-TI Advanced achieves the same result more affordably by producing a "relative" thermal image. A "relative" thermal image is made by combining the temperature of a center spot by a highly accurate two-color pyrometer and an image from a video camera containing a short wavelength infrared filter resulting in an auto calibrated thermal image.

The ISR 6-TI Advanced is an integrated system that operates in a short wavelength (around 1 μm) for accurate and reliable temperature measurements between 700 °C and 1800 °C. The analog video output signal is converted to USB and fed to a PC where LumaSense's InfraWin software generates the "relative" thermal image. InfraWin also provides temperature, data logging, and analysis features.