Airborne thermal infrared sensors are widely used for military applications since the 1950s. Since that time, advances in sensor technology have made thermal infrared imaging sensors better applicable and available for civil remote sensing tasks. Nevertheless, the complexity, price and weight of the sensors have limited the field of application strongly. Since about 10 years, thermal sensor arrays that do not require any scanning mechanism nor any cooling have created a mass market of thermal imagers (Schuster & Kolobrodov 2004). These sensors are relatively cheap and easy to use. The low weight and volume of such a Thermal IR (ThIR) camera allows for the integration of this technology into standard aerial survey systems and enables the extension of the range of possible applications. This paper describes the integration of an uncooled microbolometer camera into an existing modular aerial survey system. The components of the modular system are described and the result of a practical survey mission is shown.
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