A Self Calibrating Emissivity and/or Transmissivity Independent Multiwavelength Pyrometer

Pyrometer is a favorite method to do remote temperature measurement in research and development. One-color, two-color and the disappearing filament pyrometers are most common, multicolor and multiwavelength pyrometers are being introduced recently. All these pyrometers invariably require, in one form or another, information concerning emissivity, the medium transmissivity, their ratio at some two spectral regions, the instrument's calibration constant, etc. for their operation. This information can come from hand books, from the manufacturer or in some instances, from results of dedicated separate experiments. Often this information is sample or instrument specific. Sometimes this information, though obtained from a special experiment, is obtained using a separate sample rather than the one pursued for temperature measurement. Then, there would be the question of variability from sample to sample and variability from batch to batch in the sample used. Also, previously determined calibrations can change with time, and the only way to reduce uncertainty is to perform the calibration more frequently or even immediately before the experiment. We have developed a multiwavelength pyrometer, which eliminates the need to supply the necessary emissivity and/or transmissivity information and the instrument calibration constants ahead of time. The pyrometer calibrates itself from its first cycle data.