Abstract
Monitoring the malfunction of the solar cells (for instance, 156 mm by 156 mm) caused by the soil debris requires a very low flight altitude when taking aerial photos, utilizing the autopilot function of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The autopilot flight can only operate at a certain level of altitude that can guarantee collision avoidance for flight obstacles (for instance, power lines, trees, buildings) adjacent to the place where the solar panel is installed. For this reason, aerial photos taken by autopilot flight capture unnecessary objects (surrounding buildings and roads) around the solar panel at a tremendous level. Therefore, the autopilot-based thermal imaging causes severe data redundancy with very few matched key-points around the malfunctioned solar cells. This study aims to explore the tracking capability on soil debris defects in solar cell scale between UAV video versus photo-mosaic. This study experimentally validated that the video-based thermal imaging can track the thermal deficiency caused by the malfunction of the solar cell at the level of the photo-mosaic in terms of correlation of thermal signatures (0.98–0.99), detection on spatial patterns (81–100%), and distributional property (90–95%) with 2.5–3.4 times more matched key-points on solar cells. The results of this study could serve as a valuable reference for employing video stream in the process of investigating soil debris defects in solar cell scale.
Highlights
The typical solar module is the aggregation of solar cells [1]
We have explored the adjacent distance and pattern of the SCST in solar cell malfunction caused by soil in the photo-mosaic and video-mosaic through hot spot analysis with ArcMap 9.3
After the hot spot analysis, we have evaluated the distribution of the SCSTs at that location to determine whether the spatial patterns of the SCSTs appear the same in the photo-mosaic and video-mosaic
Summary
The typical solar module is the aggregation of solar cells [1]. The solar module is made up of smaller individual solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells always come in the same standard size: 156 mm by 156 mm. The busbars and the fingers are the main components of the solar cell. The fingers of the solar cell collect the generated direct current (DC) current and deliver it to the busbars [2]. As the busbar or fingers of solar cells are short-circuited or malfunctioning, it causes abnormal heat generation in solar cells owing to overloads on fingers or busbar. As the number of malfunctioned solar cells increases, the decreasing solar panel efficiency is followed. The solar cell is the minimum survey unit in the process of investigating a solar power plant
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