Infrared thermography monitoring of solar photovoltaic systems: A comparison between UAV and aircraft remote sensing platforms

Abstract

The continuous increase in the number and scale of solar photovoltaic power plants requires the implementation of reliable diagnostic tools for fault detection. With the recent advances in low-weight, high-precision, and fast-response thermal cameras, along with professional aerial platforms, aerial infrared thermography (aIRT) is currently the most popular method for non-destructive, fast, and relatively inexpensive monitoring of photovoltaic (PV) power plants. Typically, aerial inspections are conducted using a UAV (drone) equipped with a thermal camera to produce a report indicating detected thermal defects, typically associated with failures. The main purpose of this paper was to compare the thermographic results for two different PV plants provided by two remote sensing-based approaches: the classical UAV-mounted thermal camera survey and the inspection by high-speed thermal cameras mounted on an airplane. The post-processing of thermal patterns showed good agreement between the results provided by the two aerial platforms, with an overlap of thermal anomalies detected up to 98%. An economic analysis demonstrated that, while airplane surveys incur higher costs (compared to UAV surveys) due to the hire of vehicles and more expensive instrumentation, they, on the other hand, require a reduced amount of time and may be more convenient when inspecting large-scale PV plants or multiple PV plants located within a close area.