This IR thermal camera carries a 16x12 array of thermal sensors (MLX90641) and it can detect the temperature of objects from far away with a center area accuracy of ±1℃ and average accuracy of ±1.5℃. In order to obtain the thermal images easily, the I2C protocol is used to get the low-resolution images from the camera. The FOV (Field of View) of this camera is 110°x75°, and the temperature measurement range is -40℃ to 300℃.

How Does Thermal Imaging Work?

All objects emit some amount of infrared radiation. This IR thermal imaging camera has a sensitive heat sensor that can detect tiny differences in temperature from the objects in the surrounding. Then it collects this radiation information from the objects and creates an electronic image that is based on the temperature difference information. The hotter an object is, the more infrared radiation it produces. However, this Infrared light is invisible to the naked eye and if the intensity is too high, it can be felt as heat.

This module can be connected to an MCU using the I2C interface. However, it needs an MCU that has over 20000 bytes of RAM to drive the camera. As a matter of fact, Dev boards like Arduino UNO cannot be used with this Sensor camera due to its lower ability of calculation.

What is Grove?

Grove makes it easier to connect, experiment, and simplify the prototyping process. No jumpers or soldering is required. We have developed more than 300 Grove modules, covering a wide range of applications that can fulfill a variety of needs. Not only the hardware is open-source, but the software as well.