No abstract

An infrared camera system for real-time monitoring of invisible methane gas leakages is proposed, which can be used in production, transportation, and gas plants. Instead of using conventional lasers, a medium wavelength light-emitting diode (LED) with a center wavelength of approximately 3300 nm is used for the light source of the gas detector. We achieve compact cooling with low power consumption by using a small electronic part with a Peltier element instead of a larger cooling unit. We also propose an algorithm based on adaptive average method and adaptive histogram equalization process to extract the background efficiently. This knowledge based infrared camera system effectively detects the leakage of invisible gas. Preliminary experimental results confirm the potential and effectiveness of the developed equipment to be commercialized for use in real-time gas monitoring systems. We aim to eventually develop an image analysis system that combines image processing and knowledge engineering techniques.