Image-Based Gimbal Control in a Drone for Centering Photovoltaic Modules in a Thermal Image

Applied Sciences

Heon Jeong¹  Hyun-Cheol Park²  Sang-Woong Lee³ 

[1] Department of Fire Service Administration, Chodang University, Mu-An 58530, Korea;Department of IT Convergence Engineering, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea;Department of Software, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea;

关键词: drone;    gimbal;    thermal image;    photovoltaic module;    image processing;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app10134646

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Recently, there have been many types of research applying drones with a thermal camera to detect deteriorations in photovoltaic (PV) modules. A thermal camera can measure temperatures on the surface of PV modules and find the deteriorated area. However, a thermal camera generally has a lower resolution than a visible camera because of the limitations of cost. Due to different resolutions between the visible and thermal cameras, there are often invalid frames from a thermal camera. In this paper, we describe a gimbal controller with a real-time image processing algorithm to control the angle of the camera to position the region of interest (ROI) in the center of target PV modules to solve this problem. We derived the horizontal angle and vertical position of ROI in visible images using image processing algorithms such as the Hough transform. These values are converted into a PID control signal for controlling the gimbal. This process makes the thermal camera capture the effective area of target PV modules. Finally, experimental results showed that the photovoltaic module’s control area was properly located at the center of the thermal image.

【 授权许可】

Unknown