태양광 발전 플랜트 검사를 위한 무인기의 비행계획

Photovoltaic (PV) plants have been widely installed for harvesting renewable energy. Because the failure of PV modules decreases electric efficiency, the maintenance of PV modules is necessary to guarantee performance and efficiency. Various investigation methods have been developed to inspect defects in PV modules. In particular, research for the monitoring of PV modules with UAV-mounted thermography has been reported. This thermography approach has advantages in its operation speed, cost, and non-destructive and contact-free measurements, but the quality of the resulting images depends on the shooting conditions. Therefore, the precise observation conditions of the UAV are required to obtain reliable thermal images of PV modules. In this paper, we propose a flight-planning algorithm for inspecting installed PV plants. This algorithm detects PV modules on satellite images through image processing and can generate an inspection trajectory by considering an appropriate shooting position. Experiments are conducted to determine appropriate measurement positions. Additionally, flight tests are conducted to verify the feasibility of inspecting PV plants.