Investigation of the dynamic thermal infrared signatures of a calibration target instrumented with a network of 1-wire temperature sensors

In this paper, we describe the temperature and thermal variations from a painted geometrical target (CUBI) fitted with a network of internally mounted 1-wire temperature sensors. The sensors, which were calibrated in a temperature-controlled oven, were recorded every 20 seconds over a period from May to December 2015. This amounts to an archive of approximately 180 days of near uninterrupted data. Two meteorological stations collocated with the CUBI on a roof test site, record relevant environmental parameters every few minutes. In this paper, we analyze the data for only one day, 2 October 2015, for which a wavelet analysis highlights the contribution of different temporal fluctuations to total signature. We selected this specific day since it represented simple environmental conditions, and additionally images from a 3-5 microns (MWIR) thermal imager were recorded. Finally, we demonstrate that a wavelet decomposition of the temperature signature to be a useful method to characterize dynamic temperature changes, and perhaps a method to verify prediction models for varying fluctuation scales.