Microsoft patents thermal lens design for better center detection
Microsoft has filed a patent for a thermal camera lens that uses a specific curved shape, known as barrel distortion, to improve image quality. This design gives the center of the camera's view more detail than the edges, allowing it to spot heat signatures from farther away while keeping a wide field of view.
In the filing’s own words
A thermal imaging camera system having a compact form factor for use in applications such as head-mounted display devices employs a lens design having a specific barrel distortion profile that increases the angular resolution of the lens while maintaining an overall field of view (FOV). The barrel distortion profile provides a corresponding increase in pixel angular resolution (i.e., pixels per angle of FOV) in a central region of the FOV of the camera as compared to that provided by a conventional rectilinear lens having an idealized zero distortion profile. The increase in angular resolution enables improvement in long-range center-field detection of thermal signatures of objects and/or people, while the optical distortion allows the lens to satisfy the full angular FOV requirements of the thermal imaging camera system. In illustrative embodiments, the lens designs utilize optical distortion profiles that deviate from the idealized lens using higher-order terms in a mathematical model.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A thermal imaging camera system arranged for capturing thermal images within a field of view (FOV), comprising: a thermal imaging sensor comprising a microbolometer array providing a focal plane array of pixels for a thermal image, the microbolometer array having sensitivity to infrared (IR) radiation, the microbolometer array converting the received IR radiation to an electrical signal representing the thermal image; and a lens arranged to focus IR radiation, emitted by a target within the FOV of the thermal imaging camera system, onto the microbolometer array, wherein the lens is configured with a barrel distortion profile that provides a pixel angular resolution for a central area of the FOV that is greater than or equal to a pixel angular resolution for edge areas of the FOV.
Facts
- Company
- Microsoft (Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC)
- Official title
- THERMAL CAMERA LENS DESIGNWITH IMPROVED CENTER-FIELD DETECTION RANGE
- Publication number
- US20260303933A1
- Application number
- 19089855
- Filed
- Mar 25, 2025
- Published
- Oct 1, 2026
- Inventors
- 2
- Claims
- 20
Classified under
H04N 23/23 Electricity & electronicsH04N 23/21 Electricity & electronicsH04N 23/55 Electricity & electronicsH04N 23/57 Electricity & electronicsG02B 2027/0138 Physics & computingG02B 2027/0141 Physics & computingMore from Microsoft in Cameras & imaging
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.