Development of the Compact Infrared Camera (CIRC) for earth observation

We have developed Compact Infrared Camera (CIRC) with an uncooled infrared array detector (microbolometer) for space applications. The main mission of the CIRC is to demonstrate technology for wildfire detection. Wildfires are a major and chronic disaster that affects many countries, especially those in the Asia-Pacific region, and the situation may get worse with global warming and climate change. The CIRC detector has the largest format (640 × 480 pixels) ever used for observations of Earth from space. Microbolometers have the advantage of not requiring cooling systems such as a mechanical cooler and are suitable for resource-limited sensor systems or small satellites. In addition, the CIRC employs athermal optics and a shutter-less system, and hence, it is of a small size, is lightweight, and consumes low electrical power. The CIRC design was based on a commercial infrared camera and employs commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts to reduce the cost and time for development. The CIRC will be carried as a technology demonstration payload of ALOS-2 and ISS/JEM, which will be launched in 2013 and 2014. We have developed the CIRC Proto Flight Model (PFM) and performed experiments for calibration in January 2012. In this paper, we present the verification results of the athermal characteristics and the calibration of the shutter-less system.