Compact-fire infrared radiance spectral tracker (c-FIRST)

Remote sensing and characterization of high temperature targets on the Earth’s surface is required for many cross-disciplinary science investigations and applications including wildland fire impacts on ecology, the carbon cycle, and atmospheric composition. For decades this research has been hindered by insufficient spatial resolution and detector saturation of satellite sensors operating at short and mid-infrared wavelengths (1-5μm) where the spectral radiance from high temperature (>800K) surfaces is most significant. To address this critical need, we are developing a compact modular high dynamic range multispectral imager. The Compact Fire Infrared Radiance Spectral Tracker (C-FIRST), which leverages digital focal plane array (DFPA). The DFPA is hybridized from a state-of-the-art high operating temperature barrier infrared detector (HOT-BIRD) and a digital readout integrated circuit (D-ROIC), which features an in-pixel digital counter to prevent current saturation, and thereby provides very high dynamic range (>100dB). The DFPA will thus enable unsaturated, high-resolution imaging and quantitative retrievals of targets with a large variation in temperatures, ranging from 300K to >1600K. With the resolution to resolve 60 m-scale thermal features on the Earth’s surface from a nominal orbital altitude of 500 km, the full temperature and area distribution of wildland fires, increasing science content per returned byte.