Study on Human Temperature Measurement by Infrared Thermography

Increased temperature in humans is one of symptoms of infectious diseases. Infrared thermography is a popular method for measuring temperature as it offers fast and non-contact temperature measurement. However, and despite many advantages, its real accuracy for human temperature measurement is not sufficient in many cases. This study was focused on a statistical evaluation of human temperature measurement reliability. The goal of the experiment was to find limitations of thermography at near-laboratory conditions. More than 300 measurements were made simultaneously by a thermography and an arm-pit thermometer on a closed group of persons during several months. The results showed that standard deviations of the performed armpit and thermographic temperature measurement were about 0.15 and 0.36 °C, respectively, but that a temperature shift and a dependence on ambient conditions can occur due to the used experimental configuration.