Gas insulated switchgear (GIS) is widely used in the power systems, however, the contacts overheating of the inside circuit breaker or disconnector may be a potential cause of developing accidents. As the temperature of the contacts cannot be directly acquired due to existence of the metallic shield, an infrared sensor is adopted to directly measure the temperature of the shield and then the contacts temperature can be indirectly obtained by data fitting, based on which the on-line temperature monitoring technology specifically for GIS contacts based on infrared sensing is proposed in this paper. A real GIS test platform is constructed and experimental studies are carried out to account for the influential factors that affect the accuracy of the infrared temperature measurement. A heat transfer model of the GIS module is also developed, together with experimental studies, the nonlinear temperature relationship among the contacts, the metallic shield and the environment based on a neural network algorithm is established. Finally, an integrated on-line temperature monitoring system for the GIS contacts is developed for on-site applications.