Accurate determination of thermal parameters of microbolometer-based sensors is of considerable interest for many applications. The most important parameters are thermal time constant, heat capacitance and thermal conductance. In this work, we have developed a technique to measure all three quantities using a single electrical measurement. The method involves the measurement of time dependent output voltage of a balanced Wheatstone bridge containing a microbolometer under pulse bias condition. The validity of the approach is verified experimentally using metal–film microbolometers. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical analysis of the measurement technique.©1998 American Institute of Physics.