On a bright day, infrared light, also known as infrared radiation (IR), produces the warmth you feel on your skin. It's also the foundation for thermal imaging cameras; however, there are a few simple ways to block this form of IR if needed partially.
Before discussing how to block infrared cameras or light, we must first understand what an infrared camera, often known as a thermal imaging camera, is and how it works.
What Is an Infrared Camera?
An infrared camera is a gadget that uses infrared (IR) radiation to create an image, similar to how a regular camera uses visible light to make an image.
Infrared cameras are susceptible to wavelengths ranging from about 1,000 nanometers to about 14,000 nanometers instead of the visible light camera's 400 - 700 nm range.
Thermography is the process of collecting and analysing the information they provide.
How Infrared Cameras Work
A heat signature is the emission of infrared energy by any object. The infrared energy of things is detected and measured by an infrared camera.
- The camera turns the infrared data into an electronic image that depicts the object's apparent surface temperature.
- An optical system in an infrared camera concentrates infrared energy onto a particular detector chip (sensor array) with thousands of detection pixels arranged in a grid. Every pixel in the sensor array produces an electrical signal responding to the infrared energy.
- The camera processor analyses each pixel's signal and uses a mathematical formula to build a colour map of the object's perceived temperature. We allocate a different colour to each temperature value.
- The generated colour matrix is saved in memory and displayed as a thermal object image on the camera. Many infrared cameras also feature a visible light camera with each trigger pull that records a conventional digital image.
- It's easy to link problem regions in your infrared image with the actual equipment or location you're evaluating by mixing these images. IR-Fusion technology combines a visible light image with an infrared thermal image with pixel-for-pixel alignment.
- To better see the problem in the infrared image or locate it within the visible light image, you can adjust the intensity of the visual light and infrared images. Beyond basic thermal imaging capabilities, you can find infrared cameras with extra features such as automation, speech annotations, improved resolution, image recording and streaming, and reporting and analysis.
8 Ways on How to Block Infrared Camera
You can utilise numerous strategies to conceal or hide from thermal imaging heat signatures, which we will explain below;
1. Stay Behind Glass
While some infrared wavelengths penetrate glass, the ones used by thermal imaging cameras don't penetrate. When you're inside your home, vehicle, or a concealed location, you're protected from thermal imaging "spying."
It also implies that you may carry a pane of glass about with you as an IR-blocking screen. On the other hand, a thermal imaging camera would pick up the curvature of the mirror, so you wouldn't quite blend in.
2. Use a Mylar Foil Thermal Blanket to Cover Yourself
A Mylar foil thermal blanket is made of heat-reflective, thin plastic sheeting and is very light and bulky. We use them for heat management on the external surfaces of spacecraft and people.
Its design reduces the energy loss in a person's body that would ordinarily occur owing to thermal radiation, convection, or water evaporation. Their low weight and compact dimensions make them perfect before flapping when weight or space is limited.
They could be included in first-aid kits as well as camping gear. The bright surface flashes in the light, allowing it to be used as an improvised distress beacon for searches and as a technique of signalling over vast distances to other people by lost campers and hikers.
The blanket makes the areas of your body covered by it virtually invisible to a thermal imaging camera because it prevents your body heat from escaping.
- If you're worried about overhead thermal imaging cameras, you can buy a tarp made of the same material and make a tent out of it.
3. Use a Wool Blanket
A wool blanket works in the same way as the Mylar foil thermal blanket in that it traps your body heat and keeps it from being detected by the thermal imaging camera. On the other hand, your body heat will ultimately warm the material and make it more visible.
Due to the many factors to account for, it's hard to give accurate figures for how long certain materials will conceal you. In other circ*mstances, you may only gain a few minutes of concealment.
4. Use Thick Netting to Conceal Yourself and Diffuse Your Heat Signature
Consider the type of netting you'd see in a military environment, complete with false leaves and other embellishments to help it fit in with the vegetation around you.
While some of your body heat may flow through the netting, it will be "chopped up" into shards that may be difficult to recognise as a person's shape. This type of netting works best as a screen between you and the infrared camera; for example, you may stretch it overhead between several trees to hide your camp from drones.
You can find thick netting in outdoor sporting goods stores, military surplus stores, and online.
5. Place Yourself in Front of a Heat Source That Is Close to Your Body Temperature
A thermal imaging camera can see you because of the difference in temperature between your body and the temperatures of the items around you.
As a result, your heat signature will fit in if you position yourself near huge items equivalent to your temperature.
- For instance, you may crouch in front of a rock or stand in front of a concrete block wall, scorched by the sun the whole day.
6. Use a UV Protection Umbrella
A UV protection umbrella consists of materials that shield against the sun's ultraviolet rays. It will ensure you are dry in the rain and keep you cool in hot weather. The tops of many of them have a gleaming 'silver' gloss.
Depending on what you're looking for, you might or might not want it.
7. Wear Insulated Clothes
These include insulated pants, a jacket, and a hat. Although it will go a long way toward reducing the heat signature, it won't be perfect. The heat will build up again and pass through the neck and face pores.
In addition, you might use cold mud to mask your face for a short period.
8. Examine the Benefits and Drawbacks of Developing Tech Approaches for Blocking IR
Scientists are working on light, flexible, IR-blocking "shields" that could act as clothes or blankets in the future.
One such product, black silicon, contains small etchings and spikes on its surface that assist in diluting and impeding IR penetration. However, don't hold your breath for "invisibility cloaks."
- Please note that the cloak would only render you virtually invisible to infrared (thermal imaging) cameras, not the human eye or night vision cameras.
Other Things That Block Infrared Camera IR
Other items that block infrared camera IR, in addition to glass and insulated clothes, include:
Walls
Thermal cameras cannot look past barriers. This assumption is a common misunderstanding that we've formed due to movies. The walls are too thick and insulate well enough to block infrared rays.
On the other hand, thermal cameras only see surface temperature changes caused by items behind the wall rather than seeing through it. An infrared camera can only detect heat from the wall in front of it, not from behind it.
However, it will detect something inside the wall that causes a significant temperature change. Thermal imaging, for example, is commonly used by building maintenance specialists to discover concerns such as water leaks or missing insulation without having to dismantle walls.
Concrete
The principle here is the same as when it comes to walls. Thermal imaging cameras are unable to see through concrete. Infrared radiation cannot penetrate concrete because it is too thick.
However, an infrared camera may detect something inside the concrete, such as a pipe, that generates a temperature differential on the surface.
Metal
Metal is a strange material to use for thermal imaging. Sparkling metals or any metal object that is sleek or polished will reflect infrared light, just like glass.
Anyone monitoring pipes or machinery for overheating parts may face difficulties due to this problem. On the other hand, thermal imaging makes it easier to correctly measure oxidised
Although infrared cameras cannot see through metal, highly conductive metals can display hot regions, cold spots, and the amount of a substance within a metal container.
Aluminum Foil
Any electrically conducting material blocks infrared radiation. The more conductivity there is, the more blockage there is. All infrared radiation will be blocked by aluminium foil since it is a highly conductive material.
Water
Underwater, infrared cameras are often ineffective. Because of the concerns with glass, this is the case. Water blocks infrared wavelengths in the same way that an opaque barrier blocks visible light wavelengths.
Thermal conductivity and specific heat are two further reasons thermal imaging cameras can't see through the water. Water has four times the heat capacity of air, needing four times the energy to increase or reduce the temperature.
In simple terms, it indicates that objects gain or lose heat energy significantly faster and over shorter distances when compared to water. Submerged things are more difficult to distinguish in thermal imaging than in air.
Marine life researchers use thermal imaging cameras to detect live forms on the surface level from their study vessels. Underwater, infrared cameras can identify living things, although this depends on waves, the water's depth, and the heat signature of the living creature.
As a result, calm and clean water will function better for a thermal camera than muddy water.
Trees
Although a thermal camera cannot detect anything through a tree's trunk, it can assist in seeing people or animals in forested environments. Search and rescue teams frequently employ thermal imaging to detect heat signatures when exploring through forests.
Even Though infrared cameras cannot see through rocks, they can assist in detecting anomalies in certain rock formations.
A study on locating undamaged rock bridges utilised infrared thermal imaging. The surfaces of two boulders with minor warm thermal anomalies displayed cold thermal fingerprints using thermal imaging.
The study praised thermography's ability to detect undamaged rock bridges from afar, enhancing rockfall hazard assessment.
Rocks
Even Though infrared cameras cannot see through rocks, they can assist in detecting anomalies in certain rock formations.
A study on locating undamaged rock bridges utilised infrared thermal imaging. The surfaces of two boulders with minor warm thermal anomalies displayed cold thermal fingerprints using thermal imaging.
The study praised thermography's ability to detect undamaged rock bridges from afar, enhancing rockfall hazard assessment.
Human Body
Thermal imaging is renowned for detecting biological forms, although it cannot see through bodies.
On the other hand, modern technology has made it possible to see life forms through their heat points, which we may subsequently utilise to infer multiple illness patterns from the body's temperature distribution.
Because body temperature is a significant predictor of people's health, it has gotten much attention. Thermography provides a thorough depiction of a patient's body temperature distribution in addition to reliable temperature measurement.
To conclude, the following are the methods you can use to block infrared cameras;
- Stay behind glass.
- Use a Mylar foil thermal blanket.
- Use a wool blanket.
- Use thick netting.
- Stand in heat sources close to your body temperature.
- Use a UV protection umbrella.
- Wear insulated clothes.
- Examine developing tech approaches of blocking IR.
Moreover, the listed items below are also able to block infrared camera IR;
- Walls
- Concrete
- Metal
- Aluminium foil
- Water
- Trees
- Rocks
- Human Body
More Tips
When concealing your heat signature, an IR scan of the region may find you if your signature seems 'too cool' under certain conditions. Most IR cloaking technologies, such as IR clothing or nets meant to block IR, have the drawback of blocking background IR, resulting in a black hole of variable degrees.
Ideally, you would like something that 'masks' or blends your IR signature such that the viewer sees the background scatter at your location. By day or night, stay away from open areas and skylines. When it is raining, thermal imaging is not perfect.
