Development of two-band infrared radiometer for irradiance calibration of target simulators

A detector-based spectral radiometer has been developed for the calibration of target simulator. Unlike the conventional spectral irradiance calibration method based on radiance and irradiance, the new radiometer is calibrated using image-space temperature based method. The image-space temperature based method improves the reproducibility in the calibration of radiometer and reduces the uncertainties existing in the conventional calibration methods. The calibrated radiometer is then used to establish the irradiance transfer standard for the target simulator. With the designed radiometer in this paper, a highly accurate irradiance calibration for target simulators of wavelength from 2.05 to 2.55 μm and from 3.7 to 4.8 μm can be performed with an expanded uncertainty (k = 2) of calibration of 2.18%. Last but not least, the infrared radiation of the target simulator was measured by the infrared radiometer, the effectiveness and capability of which are verified through measurement of temperature and irradiance and a comparison with the thermal imaging camera.