The ECAM-IR1 is a compact Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) uncooled microbolometer camera, providing thermal images and video as an in-flight engineering diagnostic tool, to detect objects with thermal signatures, or to make general observations in complete darkness.

The IR1 utilizes an uncooled Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) microbolometer sensor array with integral Read-Out Integrated Circuit (ROIC). The sensor outputs 12-bit pixels that are transmitted to the DVR on a 100 Mbit/s serial link. Within the DVR, video is preprocessed and compressed in real-time, then buffered to memory for playback at a later time. The video is reformatted as needed for input to either a JPEG (lossy) or Huffman First Difference (lossless) compressor.

The IR1 can be programmed for variable window size and mirroring. Video frame rate is fully adjustable up to 50 Hz. Images may be postprocessed with scalable false-color output. A standard F/1 lens option is available for the ECAM series LWIR-band cameras.

The IR1 includes mounting flanges that may be configured to mount the camera in one of four orientations.