Thermal Imaging Tests on Conservation Drones
Over the last week, ResearchDrones.com and ConservationDrones.org conducted a series of tests of low cost thermal imaging cameras.
Models tested:
1. FLIR HS-324 Patrol 19mm Thermal camera (320 x 240 res) (link)
2. NEC F30 Thermal Shot Infrared Thermal Imager (160 x 120 res) (link)
Above: Flight tests (cloudy daylight, ~3 pm winter afternoon)
FLIR image taken by conservation drone from ~100 m above ground. FLIR camera tilted ~40 degrees downwards.
NEC image taken by conservation drone from ~100 m above ground. NEC camera was downward facing.
Ground tests (complete darkness, ~9 pm winter night):
Conclusion:
The FLIR is the clear winner in terms of picture resolution and thermal sensitivity. But the FLIR HS-324 is also much heavier and costly (~600 g, ~US$ 7,000) than the NEC (~300 g, US$ 4,000).
Based on these tests, we believe the ideal solution might be the more compact FLIR MS-324 (320 x 240 res) (link), which has the same resolution as the FLIR HS-324, but weighs much less (340 g) and is also more affordable (~US$ 3,000).
(*Note: We are not sponsored by the companies hyper-linked to in this post. The cameras we tested were either rented or on loan from colleagues.)
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3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on January 5, 2013 at 9:47am -
Impressive! Thanks for sharing.
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Comment by lianpinkoh on January 5, 2013 at 11:57am -
Hooks, I believe so.
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Comment by Hunter Parris on January 5, 2013 at 1:51pm -
$3K isn't bad for the 320x240 resolution. I'm waiting for SPi to come out with a sUAV FLIR camera ready for flight!
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3D Robotics Comment by Joshua Ott on January 5, 2013 at 2:35pm -
Thanks for sharing your results.
That's a nice antenna tracker,btw.
: )
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Moderator Comment by Hooks on January 5, 2013 at 3:27pm -
Here you Can see the difference between the 9 hz and 30 hz version
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A_7TpS4cRWo#/watch?v=A_7TpS4cRWo
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Comment by Jesse on January 5, 2013 at 4:55pm -
I *seriously* want a thermal camera :-(
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Comment by Simon on January 5, 2013 at 5:21pm -
Joshua Ott: we thought we'd go for as much CPU power we can get with the antenna tracking.
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Comment by Josh Potter on January 5, 2013 at 5:51pm -
FLir 320 x 240 30Hz NTSC $2,500
Weight is 360 grams (.8 lbs)
I think this is the same camera in that handheld one but with the higher refresh rate.
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