You don't even need to get so "fancy" [0] as IR cameras. "Nightvision" by way of light amplification has been around for ages. [1] Even the cheap stuff I played with decades ago lit up the night like nobody's business if there was even the smallest amount of moonlight. The downside was that bright lights made the image useless, but if you're building a robot, or running the video feed back to an operator you'd simply have another non-nightvision camera.
[0] Is it fancy if IR camera tech has been around since like the 1980's or 1970's?
[1] Since WWII if Wikipedia is to be believed.
Just an example of what a prosumer camera could do 12 years ago from a Sony A7s:
https://philipbloom.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SONY...
This camera is capable of iso 409,600, 4 stops higher than this image. I mean this is turning night into day.