SKYDOG ATI
Aerial Thermal Imaging
Inspection
Inspection entails entire or partial structures, using IR / RGB techiques.
Thermal inspections can be helpful on roofs (for water ingress...), house insulation evaluation, air leaks, solar panels (detection of blocking diodes going bad, reverse polarity, cell defects, junction or combiner box issues ...), wind turbines (connection points, switches, brushings, transformers, generators, motors, blade stress fractures...), house inspections (thermal quality, air leaks...) etc.
​
The drones used have different modes for viewing structures. In Smart Grid mode (RGB mode), the drone is positioned to allow drawing on the RC (remote controller) screen a box around the area of interest. This will be done with the wide angle camera. Then selecting Smart Grid will switch to the Zoom camera, where it will take high definition imagery (4K) at 16X optical zoom. The result is a local website set of files that can be delivered to the client. Then by selecting any of the boxes will pull up a 4K image of the area selected. This can then be enlarged even more (up to four times before loosing any data).
Thermal inspections can be helpful on roofs (for water ingress...), solar panels (detection of blocking diodes going bad, reverse polarity, cell defects, junction or combiner box issues ...), wind turbines (connection points, switches, brushings, transformers, generators, motors, blade stress fractures...), house inspections (thermal quality, air leaks...) etc.
​
All IR imagery includes a RGB image, since shadows, leaves, dirt etc can impact the results. Being able to compare the two images helps to eliminate false positives.
​
The roof below is over 20 years old. The darker areas are cooler and should be inspected for water ingress. If it were closer to sunset, these same areas can be warmer, since water will retain heat longer than the sourrounding material.
This house was built in the 1800's and short on insulation. The wood burning stove going (patio level at chimney), with some solar noise on a 40F, late afternoon from the left (West). Top floor is not heated (except of heat going up stairs). A report would include temperature area/spot annotaions indicating temperatures. Sample report further down.
Weather on Oct 10, 2022
https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/vt/south-burlington/KBTV/date/2022-10-10
Here's a friends log cabin with extensive insulation Basement included, heated). There isn't any detectable heat loss (40F, late afternoon). The majority of heat detected is from solar noise.
Old house in Nashua with significant heat loss (54F area). Owner insulated afterwards.
Partial example of a thermal evaluation report.