Single pixel imaging helps with economical visualisation of methane

In a paper published in Optics Express, researchers from Glasgow University’s School of Physics and Astronomy and M Squared Lasers, a Glasgow-based photonics company, describe how they have used single-pixel imaging to create real-time video images of methane gas in a typical atmospheric setting.

Gas imaging technology is already commercially available but current systems are expensive, unwieldy and power-hungry. Single-pixel imaging uses one light-sensitive pixel to build digital images instead of using conventional multi-pixel sensor arrays, which can be too expensive for infrared imaging. This allows the researchers to build a smaller, cheaper gas detection system.

According to Glasgow University, the scene in front of the sensor is illuminated using a sequence of infrared patterns created using a laser tuned to 1.65μm, the absorption wavelength of methane, and display technology commonly found in digital data projectors. Using sophisticated sampling techniques to correlate the projected patterns and the gas, the researchers can create a real-time, coloured coded, image of the gas overlaid on an image of the scene using a conventional colour camera.