Happy New Year and New 2011 Technology Introductions
New high resolution uncooled thermal camera
Optronics Africa Partner Xenics IR has just introduced the Gobi 640, a smart, affordable uncooled microbolometer (LWIR) camera for thermal imaging, based on a flexible TCP/IP interfacing in a very compact housing. The Gobi offers a high degree of flexibility in terms of frame rate, user interface and temperature range, enabling the user to adapt it to various industrial settings and tasks, covering the automotive industry at optimum operational conditions. All camera functions can be optimized according to user applications context, including four different display modes.
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Meet us as AAD2010
Optronics Africa will be at Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD 2010) AFB Ysterplaat, Cape Town.
21-25 September 2010
Come and meet with us to discuss your optronics and surveillance needs, and to see what we can offer.
The Optronics Africa Stand will be in Hall 4 at the AISI Pavilion, Stand 6, where we will have some systems on display related to safety and security.
Our supplier, Xenics, will be at Hall 7, Stand 11 with several camera systems on display, including a low-cost stabilized airborne gimbal for security, policing and environmental protection applications.
We are looking forward to meeting you!
South Africa has a large mining sector, with mining being one of the primary economic drivers for the country. Many of the mineral processing sites, have a range of by-products which need to be managed in some cases from a health and safety point of view. A typical approach is to flare of combustible vapor by-products or surplus gas from the plant.
In many flaring cases, it has been found that some of the vapor is very clean burning, and visual inspection is unsatisfactory to determine if the vapor is indeed being burned as required.
At a recent experimental demo, Optronics Africa used a Xenics GOBI camera to observe the burning of 4 simultaneous gas flares and were able to determine if the flares we indeed burning or not.
The camera used is an a-Si FPA uncooled solution in the 8-14um waveband. It has a resolution of 384 X 288 pixels with a 50Hz frame rate.
The camera was set at a stand-off of approximately 100-200m from the various stacks and was able to clearly observed the gas flares while the processing was in operation. Of particular importance was that two of the flares were indeed invisible to the naked eye, yet showed up clearly on the camera display.
It is clear that the use of IR imaging in a non-contact stand of configuration with appropriate lens, frame rate and band can effectively be used in the observation of clean burning gas flares from industrial processes.
COMPETITION: 2010 FEVER DETECTION FOR AFRICA!
FREE – GRATIS – MAHALA!!!!!!
A HUGE INFLUX of international visitors is being expected by South Africa through the various Ports-Of-Entry during the upcoming difficult and very exciting period as the World’s foremost teams gather to fight it out….
The arrival of so many people from all over the world, some travelling from their summer to our winter, and others simply swopping their winter for ours, will inevitably bring about an increased risk and possible spread of infectious disease.
As part of our commitment to invest in the well-being of the local community and that of our international visitors, Optronics Africa together with one of our partners, Xenics Infrared Solutions, will be providing our competition winner with the following 2010 Grand Prize:
The use of: 1 x Raven Fever Detection System. On loan for 6 months at no cost.
Terms and Conditions will apply to the competition.
The competition will open next month, and participation will be extended to all South African official Ports-Of-Entry. The competition will include a few simple questions.
The winning Port Of Entry will be enabled to provide improved health monitoring facilities and therefore contribute to the reduction in the spread of disease for the duration of the loan at no cost.
If you wish to read up on the technology offering, please read the following blog post:
Accurate reliable non contact fever detection system for airports, harbours and ports of entry.
Accurate reliable non contact fever detection system for airports, harbours and ports of entry.
Preventing the spread of infectious diseases is a concern to all nations and health authorities. South Africa is no exception.
In combating the spread of disease, international travel has been identified as a major contributor to the rapid spreading of infectious diseases, and it is fairly obvious that the areas where it would be ideal to place controls to reduce such spread, include airports, harbours and other ports of entry.
In the case of many infectious diseases, fever is a fairly common overt sign, and as such, the early detection of elevated body temperatures may provide the key to an effective disease-prevention strategy.
A means of detecting such elevated body temperatures is by means of infrared thermography.

Typical setup for fever detection at security checkpoint
Infrared cameras detect the heat that is emitted from a surface, in this case the skin. This produces a temperature map of the person in real-time. The process is totally passive, harmless and non-intrusive, very much the same as the process when a conventional video camera records a video clip.
The temperature measured at the corner of the individual’s eye (inner canthus) closely approaches core body temperature, and for this reason it is desirable to focus on the face when applying thermography to the detection of fever in individuals.
The most suitable location for the fixed installation of such a system would be at any place that has long queues such as at passport or customs control. At these locations people can be screened individually.
The results are displayed in a coloured image, where various colours represent various temperatures, and it is possible to highlight temperatures above pre-set thresholds.
The Xenics Raven-384 infrared camera together with the specialised fever detection software is an accurate, simple, reliable and above all, affordable solution for all locations where the spatial measurement of temperature in real time is required.