Method and system for detection and localization of thermal defects
AssigneeQeatech Inc.
InventorsMansour Asrani, Peyvand Melati Rad, Omid Alaei
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and associated method for thermal inspection of structures. The method includes providing an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”), the UAV comprising a thermal camera for capturing thermal image data, a visible light camera for capturing visible light image data, and a positioning system for capturing positioning data, operating the UAV by flying the UAV along a predetermined flight path around an inspection structure, simultaneously capturing thermal image data of the inspection structure, visible light image data of the inspection structure, and positioning data at regular intervals, while the UAV flies along the flight path.
Claims20
A thermal inspection method comprising:
- defining a boundary around a building element within the thermal image data;
- identifying a maximum temperature pixel within the boundary of the building element, the maximum temperature pixel associated with the greatest temperature;
- defining a pixel region around the maximum temperature pixel according to a provided max walk parameter;
- expanding the pixel region by a provided max step parameter, defining an expanded pixel area around the maximum temperature pixel;
- and
- analysing a shape of the expanded pixel area to identify a thermal anomaly.
A thermal inspection system, the system comprising:
- a thermal camera for capturing thermal image data of an inspection structure;
- and
- a processor configured to:
- define a boundary around a building element within the thermal image data;
- identify a maximum temperature pixel within the boundary of the building element, the maximum temperature pixel associated with the greatest temperature;
- define a pixel region around the maximum temperature pixel according to a provided max walk parameter;
- expand the pixel region by a provided max step parameter, defining an expanded pixel area around the maximum temperature pixel;
- and
- analyse a shape of the expanded pixel area to identify a thermal anomaly.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.