Teledyne FLIR Thermal Cameras and What Georgia Conditions Do to Them
FLIR became Teledyne FLIR after Teledyne acquired the company in 2021. Its security range is built around thermal imaging: fixed thermal cameras, where the useful question is whether classification runs on the camera or on the recorder; the Elara DX-Series multispectral pan-tilt-zoom cameras, which pair a thermal imager with a visible one in a single housing; and the Quasar visible-light cameras that usually sit alongside them.
Thermal is the right tool for a fence line, a substation yard, a rail spur, a container lot or the unlit end of a solar field. It is also the technology most often specified from a data sheet and then quietly disappointed with in the field. The disappointment usually traces back to four things, and three of them get worse in this climate.
Thermal sees contrast, and a Georgia afternoon erases it
A thermal camera does not see heat. It sees difference in heat. On a July afternoon, asphalt, metal roofs and painted steel sit well above body temperature, and as they cool through the evening they pass straight through it. During that crossover a person walking across a loading apron can register at nearly the same apparent temperature as the ground behind them. Humid air also attenuates long-wave infrared, so the range that held in a dry lab does not hold in August near the coast. Design for the worst hour of the year, not the average one.
Detection range is not identification range
Published thermal ranges are detection figures, meaning enough pixels on target to say that something is there. Recognition and identification require several times more. A camera specified to cover six hundred feet of fence will reliably tell you a vehicle entered. It will not tell you which vehicle. Decide zone by zone which of those three answers you actually need, and expect the specification and the budget to change accordingly.
What really sets off false alarms here
- Wildlife. Deer along a wood line and dogs in a yard throw human-sized signatures unless the analytics classify by shape and motion rather than by hot pixels.
- Driving rain and fog, which scatter the signal and can wash a scene out entirely during a squall.
- Sun-loaded surfaces giving heat back after dark: a metal gate, a parked trailer, a stretch of new pavement.
- Vegetation. In this climate a clear sight line in April is a hedge by July, and a camera that was watching a fence ends up watching leaves.
Pair thermal with something that can identify
The pattern that works is thermal for detection and a visible or multispectral camera for verification. The thermal unit calls the event; the pan-tilt-zoom or fixed visible camera supplies the face, the plate, the color of the shirt. A multispectral pan-tilt-zoom collapses both into one device where mounting positions are scarce, which is often the case on a port-adjacent yard, a rooftop with one usable parapet, or a pole that has to serve two directions.
Mounting, power and grounding end more installations than optics do
Every outdoor run needs surge protection and a real ground. Georgia summers produce frequent lightning, and an ungrounded pole camera on an open perimeter is the first thing to fail after a storm passes. Poles have to be stiff enough that wind does not induce the sway that ruins a long focal length image at the far end of its range. Enclosures, glands and connectors should assume standing humidity year-round, and salt air within reach of the coast, rather than assuming occasional rain.
KSEDCO designs, installs, commissions and services thermal perimeter systems, and integrates them into the recording and alarm platforms a site already runs so that a detection turns into something a person actually acts on. Call (888) 360-0035, or reach us at 2700 Cumberland Pkwy SE, Suite 410, Atlanta GA 30339.
FLIR owner, administrator and buyer resources
Use the parent-company knowledge center to prepare product, software, infrastructure and acceptance requirements before Georgia engineering and service.
Discuss FLIR installation, maintenance or service
Detailed guides are maintained by 360TechnologyGroup.com, the parent-company knowledge center.