The EPA is going to be requiring the gas/oil industry to conduct methane leak inspections starting in 2016. Currently that's a costly inspection conducted by using a highly technical camera (costing between $22-90K) by someone on the ground. But, using aerial imagery from a drone with the proper camera could reduce costs for the inspection and increase the efficiency of the inspection process - not to mention reduce repair costs for the gas/oil companies. The kind of camera being used now for on the ground methane inspections is a FLIR GF320, link below.
There is a company called IR-Pro who retrofits GoPros to be infrared, but they can't see methane yet. And FLIR has come out with cameras for drones, but they're not capable of seeing methane either. So, my question for the group is, does anyone know of any cameras that can see methane that are being used with drones? I've been doing a lot of research on this for the past few weeks and haven't come across anything that can be used reliably. Most cameras being used present too heavy of a payload. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Below are links to the cameras I've mentioned and attached is a great pdf regarding gas detection and inspection.
Links:
IR-Pro
http://www.ir-pro.com/
FLIR Methane Inspection Camera
http://www.flir.com/ogi/display/?id=55671
FLIR UAV cameras
http://www.flir.com/flirvue/
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