Arduino with MATLAB in the thermography

by Simone Gitto

This book has an important mission to accomplish: bridging the gap in the scientific literature on the integrated use of Arduino with MATLAB. In fact, it will have happened to students, engineers, hobbyists, designers and makers to find themselves in various projects where these two wonderful creatures remain disconnected from each other. In this book we will combine the versatility of Arduino hardware with MATLAB's numerical computation. A wonderful journey that will take place in the fantastic world of thermography: a science in full evolution and which especially today has become increasingly important in our lives and in our society. A path that will be gradual and that will start from the choice of the thermal sensor (AMG8833) up to the complete realization of the thermal camera. A further mission of this book is to be able to process thermal images with a common Arduino UNO: a challenge that is not at all obvious and that we have achieved with excellent results.The book is therefore aimed at all Arduino and MATLAB enthusiasts, engineering students, computer science, electronics but also mathematicians and physicists. Highly recommended to all makers and hobbyists who can let loose in the realization of this project. Highly recommended also for those who want to approach thermography both practically and theoretically.In the following book the introductory part is related to thermography, in fact the applications of this science are numerous and there are many sectors in which thermography finds an outlet. Later we treated the sensor chosen which is a low cost sensor, the AMG8833, able to interface with the most common microcontrollers and which falls within the range of our interest both in terms of characteristics and cost. The Arduino Uno was used to acquire data from the sensor: the challenge was therefore also to be able to acquire thermal images on one of the most popular boards on the market. In the following chapters, data communication was carried out between the Arduino and the computer where a phase of data acquisition, data processing and interpolation was carried out using MATLAB. It was therefore possible to increase the resolution of the camera up to tens of thousands of pixels. In the next chapter, the thermal camera was expanded by equipping it with an optical camera: in fact, as already happens in many fields, the thermal images are accompanied by the optical ones for a better understanding and vision of the system in its entirety.