Thermal imaging surveys
CAA Accredited pilots approved for commercial operations
- Centimetre accurate drone surveys and inspections – for all industries
- Highest safety standards – fully insured with £5m Public Liability
- Comprehensive and reliable data from industry leading reporting software
Call 01329 887 337 for more information or to request your fast, no-obligation quote.
Our specialist UAV team includes thermographers delivering in-house expertise rarely offered by other operators. Our thermal imaging surveys use thermal imaging cameras to visually represent surface temperatures to help identify possible issues for fault diagnosis or maintenance.
With experience in a range of environments we can provide a solution from the ground or from the air to help you assess your subject with non-destructive testing.
Solar Panel Thermal Imaging surveys
With experience handling portfolios up to 250MW each season, the Pathfinder team can support you through your O&M cycle. Widescale thermal imagaing surveys and analysis have a significant range of benefits:
- Preventing fires and shorting to improve safety
- Identifying faults to reduce output loss
- Assessing tree shadow impact for arboriculture works
- Validating cleaning and cutting contracts
- Cost reduction compared to ground-based imaging
- Site management improvements through our cloud portal
With our partner providers we can also scale this up to handle portfolios over a gigawatt for the season.
Over the last few years we have seen plants with nearly 20% losses as a direct result of poor maintenance. Over a large plant this can amount to tens of thousands of pounds per year lost. Having a lot of electrical faults also causes a lot of potential fire sources dotted across your site, with some faults getting in.
Thermal Imaging surveys of buildings
Early identification of construction defects or faults in older buildings can deliver huge value over the lifetime of a structure. If you want to achieve this in a non-destructive way then a thermal imaging survey is an effective option.
Some of the key things that thermography is used for are; pinpointing areas of missing insulation, heat loss, water ingress, draft identification and roofing leaks, all of which can usually be identified quickly and easily.
Using thermal inspection on electrical installations allows you to see where you have areas of high resistance across insulators or bridging cables on transmission lines and allows you to inspect substations from a point of total safety.
A thermal drone inspection ensures every angle is covered off, especially where the issue is with the roof. Often, a thermal imaging survey is done as part of commissioning new buildings to look for inconsistencies between design and finished build or as part of heat loss assessments. Using our calibrated equipment you can rely on the data we provide.
Thermal imaging surveys for Wildlife tracking and ecology assessments
Drone ecology assessments at night can be undertaken with thermal imaging to understand the extent or presence of ground nesting birds or animals. These reports add extremely valuable evidence to ecology surveys.
Consultancy advice
As a RICS Technology partner we will always offer free, no obligation advice on the best practice for the task at hand. If you have any questions about what can or can’t be achieved with thermal imaging then please do just give us a call.
FAQs about thermal imaging
Can thermal cameras see through walls?
No – thermal cameras cannot see through walls, they can’t even see through glass! Thermal cameras work differently than human eyes – even though both look at electromagnetic radiotion, they observe different frequencies. The infrared frequency (associated with normal levels of heat) is unable to pass through glass.
What resolution is the thermal camera?
Only about 0.3MP – whilst this doesn’t sound like a lot, to get better resolution you start having to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on military style technology! Our camera is 640×512 pixels which is the standard for upper-end drone based cameras. Some larger sensors are available in handheld solutions, but they are usually to heavy to load onto a drone.
Can I make a thermal 3D model?
In theory it is possible! In reality there aren’t enough pixels available to be able to recreate a building in 3D. It is possible (although difficult and time consuming) to produce a thermal map or areas with lots of features (things like solar farms).
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