FEATURES OF USE OF THERMAL IMAGER ON UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES

Abstract

The article explains the features of the use of thermal imagers for military intelligence is no longer news, and but when applying them to the unmanned aerial vehicle, there are many features, for example, the conditions of location on board, vibration from the motor, lighting, background noise. This article is devoted to the review of spheres of use of drones and recommended designs. The main initial task is to determine the design of the drone, depending on its purpose: type multicopter or glider. The actual problem is improving the output parameters of thermal imaging cameras. Special technologies will enhance the quality of the manufacture of uncooled microbolometers. To improve the physical characteristics of the camera lens, chemical compounds from several materials are used, for example, lenses from Ge-Sb-Se and enlightenment coatings. An overview of analogue devices gives reason to believe that in order to improve the minimum resolution temperature difference, it is necessary to use more light-weight lenses and to coordinate them with microbolometer matrices. The article gives a comparative description of the basic ready-made solutions of thermal imaging modules that can be used on an unmanned aerial vehicle, as well as a method of estimating the image quality by calculating the minimum effective temperature difference. The results show that considered analogs of thermal imaging modules suggest that in addition to matching the parameters of the microbolometric matrix and the lens plays a big role software, namely algorithms for processing the flow of frames to stabilize the image. In conclusion, the author describes the obtained physico-mathematical model of the thermal imager, which is located on an unmanned aerial vehicle, and ways of controlling the most important output parameters of thermal imagers: spatial and temperature resolution, minimum resolution of temperature difference