The main two different IR sensors found in the market nowadays are the uncooled microbolometers and the cooled InSb photon counting detectors due to weight limitations and new technology developments, the technology of choice for UAV + IR inspections employs uncooled microbolometers. These sensors employ different metals for their electromagnetic radiation receptive layers, such as vanadium oxide or amorphous silicon (As seen in the second picture to the right). Due to the technology development, in the latest years, we have been able to see this technology evolve, each pixel size used to be around 45µm just a few years back, however, now the normal pixel size is 12µm, allowing the manufacturers to place more pixels in a given space, thus, improving the overall image quality in the process. It is worth mentioning that even though having smaller pixel sizes, this doesn't automatically convert into better image quality, this is due to the NETD (Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (differential)), a value that represents how well a sensor absorbs the IR light, directly impacting the sensor's sensitivity.

APPLICATION FIELD

The UAV + IR commercial inspections are very important in various fields, such as firefighting, search & rescue, law enforcement, Oil and gas, Power inspection, and other engineering inspections. In the engineering field, one of the most important things an inspector might be looking for is temperature hotspots. It is for this reason that with better resolution and image quality, the easier it is to discern possible hotspots on the target's surface. Nowadays, the traditional UAV IR cameras have a resolution not higher than 640x512, being good enough to visualize a general image of the target. However, it might be difficult to discern little details or small hotspots.

BEST (UAV + IR) SOLUTION : COMPOUND IR19T

The IR19T model is a high-resolution infrared camera equipped with an 8Mpx EO zoom camera (x10). It is the most advanced IR payload in field so far. Its thermal imaging resolution is 1280x1024 ( 400% times better than any existing IR Payload in the market ).