Thermal Camera Analysis with Raspberry Pi (AMG8833)

The AMG8833 infrared thermopile array is a 64-pixel (8x8) detector that approximates temperature from radiative bodies. The module is wired to a Raspberry Pi 4 computer and communicates over the I2C bus at 400kHz to send temperature from all 64 pixels at a selectable rate of 1-10 samples per second. The temperature approximation is outputted at a resolution of 0.25°C over a range of 0°C to 80°C. A real-time infrared camera (IR camera) was introduced as a way of monitoring temperature for applications in person counting, heat transfer of electronics, indoor comfort monitoring, industrial non-contact temperature measurement, and other applications where multi-point temperature monitoring may be useful. The approximate error of the sensor over its operable range is 2.5°C, making is particularly useful for applications with larger temperature fluctuations. This tutorial is meant as the first in a series of heat transfer analyses in electronics thermal management using the AMG8833.

MATLAB Datalogger with Arduino

In this tutorial, MATLAB is introduced as an interface for data acquisition with an Arduino board. The Arduino, in this particular case, will communicate with a Windows computer via the serial port and send data from an Arduino-compatible sensor, which will subsequently be read by MATLAB through its serial communication library. Serial communication from hardware to MATLAB is very simple and requires only a few lines of code. I will also introduce a real-time analysis and plotting routine to visualize the Arduino data as it arrives in real time. This particular method of data analysis and visualization in real time is incredibly useful for engineers interested in experimentation where microcontrollers and sensors may be used, along with complex data acquisition systems.