Innovative Applications And Technological Breakthroughs of Lwir Infrared Zoom Lenses in The Fields of Industry And Security

I. Technological innovation and performance breakthrough of optical system

The long-wave infrared (LWIR) zoom lens takes the 8-14μm spectral range as its working core, and realizes the visualization of thermal signals through the cross-innovation of material science and optical engineering. Different from traditional optical components, its lens adopts a composite substrate of zinc selenide (ZnSe) and chalcogenide glass. After being processed by magnetorheological polishing process, it is combined with gradient metal-dielectric film system (AR Coatings) to increase the band transmittance to more than 96%, reducing energy loss by 12% compared with conventional design. The zoom mechanism adopts a hybrid drive solution of harmonic gears and piezoelectric ceramics, and achieves 0.05mm-level fine-tuning accuracy through a double closed-loop PID control algorithm, maintaining an MTF value of ≥0.38 (@50lp/mm) within the focal length range of 10-200mm. This aspherical optical design effectively compensates for the third-order aberration problem of traditional spherical lenses by introducing an even-order aspherical coefficient (k=-1.2).

II. Engineering innovation features of core performance

(I) Dynamic zoom and intelligent field of view management

The electric zoom system equipped with the lens has a response time of ≤300ms and supports 16 preset focal lengths for fast switching. In the oil pipeline inspection scenario, the 15-100mm continuous zoom capability can achieve a seamless transition from panoramic monitoring of the pipeline gallery (field of view 28°) to weld hot spot detection (spatial resolution 0.2mm). The built-in Hall effect encoder provides real-time feedback on the focal length position, and performs sub-pixel registration with the infrared detector pixels through the coordinate transformation algorithm to ensure distortion-free image splicing.

(II) Thermal imaging and multi-spectral fusion technology

The deep coupling with the vanadium oxide uncooled detector (640×512@17μm pixel) enables the system to have a thermal sensitivity (NETD) of 20mK. In semiconductor wafer inspection, this performance can capture temperature gradient anomalies of 0.3℃ and identify thin film stress hazards in the CVD deposition process in advance. Some high-end models integrate short-wave infrared (SWIR) channels, and through deep learning-based image fusion networks (such as U-Net++ architecture), composite images with both thermal features and texture details are generated in night environments, and target recognition efficiency is improved by 40%.

(III) Design for extreme environmental adaptability

The titanium alloy housing with IP68 protection level and built-in Peltier temperature control module can work stably under -50℃~+80℃ working conditions. The diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating of the front lens group has a 115° hydrophobic angle and can run continuously for 2000 hours in a salt spray environment (5% NaCl solution, 35℃) without performance degradation. A power transmission and transformation project in a cold region showed that the anti-condensation heating system combined with the air pressure balance valve design enabled the equipment to maintain continuous imaging under -30℃ and 90% humidity conditions, and successfully monitored the corona discharge hot spots of the power transmission line hardware.

III. Scenario-based solutions for industry applications

(I) Intelligent monitoring network for transportation infrastructure

In the health monitoring of cross-river bridges, the LWIR lens array with a focal length of 25-150mm is linked with the optical fiber strain sensor to establish a stress warning model based on the thermoelastic effect by analyzing the temperature field distribution of the steel box girder node (sampling frequency 10Hz). A certain Yangtze River Bridge application case shows that the system discovered local overheating (temperature difference ≥18K) of the main cable clamp due to bolt loosening 14 days in advance, which is 8 times more efficient than traditional manual inspections. In the highway scenario, the AI analysis platform can achieve brake system fault warning by identifying the temperature of the truck brake drum (threshold ≥200℃), reducing the accident rate at night by 35%.

(II) Stereoscopic border control and maritime monitoring

The coastal monitoring system uses a 300mm telephoto lens with a gyro-stabilized platform (stabilization accuracy 0.01°), which can classify ships within 15 nautical miles by thermal signature under level 7 sea conditions (account accuracy of 92% for merchant ships/fishing boats/speedboats). In a border control project, the spatiotemporal registration technology of the multispectral lens network and millimeter-wave radar extends the detection distance of illegal border crossing targets to 25 kilometers, and the false alarm rate is controlled below 0.3 times/day. In the application of polar research vessels, the low-temperature optimized lens (working temperature - 60℃) successfully realizes thermal imaging tracking of floating ice movement in ice areas.

(III) Predictive maintenance system for industrial equipment

In the field of power inspection, the 50-200mm zoom lens can identify the local discharge hotspots of transformer bushings (temperature anomaly ≥12K) and gas leakage hazards of GIS equipment (temperature difference ≥15K) through infrared thermal image analysis. The practice of a 500kV substation shows that the system extends the equipment failure warning lead time from an average of 36 hours to 96 hours, reducing the annual maintenance cost by 40%. In the automobile manufacturing workshop, high-precision lenses (spatial resolution 0.08mm) are combined with machine learning algorithms to achieve real-time quality judgment of the engine cylinder welding temperature field, and the welding defect rate is reduced to 0.12%.

(IV) Smart City Multi-dimensional Perception Network

The urban high-altitude observation system uses a 10-300mm continuous zoom lens, combined with an AI behavior analysis module (based on the Transformer architecture), which can automatically identify abnormal events within an area of 8 square kilometers. In airport airspace protection, this technology increases the drone intrusion warning distance to 2 kilometers, and the detection probability of micro drones (wingspan ≤ 0.5m) reaches 90%. In a smart city project, the collaborative work of thermal imaging and visible light dual-spectrum lenses has increased the accuracy of identifying suspicious persons at night from 65% to 89%.

IV. Technology Development Trends and Industry Outlook

In the future, LWIR zoom lenses will present three major innovation directions: first, the integration of super-resolution imaging technology, which will increase the spatial resolution to 5μm through computational optical reconstruction algorithms (such as Fourier stack imaging); second, the integration of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and optics to achieve a lightweight breakthrough of 200mm focal length lens weight ≤1kg; third, edge intelligent fusion, with built-in NPU chip to realize local analysis of thermal imaging data (such as automatic labeling speed of temperature anomalies ≤50ms). It is expected that by 2026, new optical components based on photonic sieves will reduce the size of lenses by 40% while maintaining the same imaging performance.

V. Conclusion: Industrial value upgrade of thermal vision technology

Long-wave infrared zoom lenses have evolved from traditional monitoring tools to core sensing nodes for industrial Internet and intelligent security. Through thermal feature extraction and spatial information fusion, they provide full life cycle status monitoring for critical infrastructure. Driven by the "dual carbon" goal, the application potential of this technology in energy efficiency management (such as hot spot detection in photovoltaic power plants) and green manufacturing will be further released, becoming an important enabling technology in digital transformation.

VI. Professional products and customized services

Rising Opto-Electronic relies on its advantages in optical design and precision manufacturing to provide a full range of LWIR zoom lens solutions:

Specialized for industrial drones: 8-50mm focal length, weight 650g, supports stable imaging in drone-borne vibration environments

Intelligent security linkage: 20-120mm focal length, integrated AI acceleration chip, supports edge-side target detection

Scientific research-grade precision: 50-300mm continuous zoom, temperature control accuracy ±0.1℃, meeting the laboratory's high-precision testing needs

All products are ISO17025 certified, and can provide customized development services for optical parameters, mechanical interfaces, and electronic control protocols according to customer needs, helping various industries build differentiated thermal vision solutions.