Application and development of infrared technology in gas detection

Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, infrared imaging technology has evolved over two centuries into a comprehensive technical system. Owing to its non-contact and high-sensitivity characteristics, it has become a forefront research focus in multidisciplinary domains. With growing demand in environmental monitoring, industrial safety, and military defense, infrared gas detection technology has developed rapidly, leveraging its unique advantages. This paper provides a systematic review of recent advances in this field. It begins with a comparative analysis of the physical principles and application scopes of active and passive gas imaging methods. The discussion then turns to the technical features of multi-component detection systems and ultra-sensitive trace detection techniques, particularly emphasizing how algorithm design mediates the trade-off between detection accuracy and engineering cost. In addition, the evolution of detection algorithms is examined, highlighting the limitations of traditional physics-based approaches in complex scenarios and illustrating how data-driven deep learning methods overcome these constraints through the automatic extraction of multidimensional features. Finally, the paper summarizes the key technical challenges currently facing the field, including the trade-off between detection accuracy and real-time performance, difficulties in enhancing gas-specific spectral bands, and the scarcity of high-quality datasets, thereby providing theoretical insights for the future development of infrared gas detection technology.