Possibilities and limits of human temperature measurement by thermographic methods

Increased temperature of humans is one of the symptoms of many infectious diseases and it is thus an important diagnostic tool. A contact based temperature measurement is a proven standard. However, infrared methods have also been developed and applied over a long period due to their advantages of a non-contact and fast measurement. This study deals with possibilities and limitations of infrared/thermographic human temperature measurement. A short review of a use of infrared temperature measurement in medical applications is provided. Experiments and statistical based evaluation to confirm possibilities, expected accuracy and limits of thermography based human temperature measurement are introduced. Results presented in this study show, that a standard deviation of the thermographic measurement was 0.4-0.9 °C and differences from the armpit measurement were up to 0.6 °C, based on the used IR camera, even though a near ideal measurement conditions and a permanent black body correction was used.