Heatsensing

Heatsensing is the detection and measurement of thermal energy emitted or experienced by objects, with the aim of determining temperature patterns, heat flow, or energy release. In practice, it encompasses passive methods that sense infrared radiation and, in some cases, active methods that involve injecting energy and observing the response. The term is used across engineering, science, and safety disciplines.

Technologies used for heatsensing include infrared thermography, in which an infrared camera captures thermal radiation to produce temperature maps; bolometers and microbolometers, which convert absorbed radiant energy into electrical signals; thermocouples and resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) for direct temperature readings; and calorimetric sensors that measure heat flow and energy content. Some systems combine multiple modalities to improve accuracy, such as integrating thermal data with optical or environmental sensors.

Applications span industrial process control and predictive maintenance, building energy auditing, medical thermography, firefighting and search-and-rescue, food safety and processing, and basic scientific research in heat transfer and thermodynamics.

Key challenges include correcting for surface emissivity variations, reflected ambient radiation, atmospheric attenuation, distance, and viewing angle. Calibration, noise, and sensor response time affect accuracy. Active heatsensing methods can perturb the system being measured, so they require careful design and interpretation.

See also: Thermography; Temperature measurement; Infrared radiation; Heat transfer.