Heat Loss Quantification (HLQ) is a key step in improving the thermal performance of buildings. Affordable infrared (IR) cameras mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) make low cost heat loss quantification using IR imaging feasible. This technique also facilitates capturing the heat loss information in hard-to-reach areas using UAVs.
In the below paper by K. Koiner et al., which was published at 2019 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology (EIT), a series of pre-processing steps such as dominant color isolation (DCI), background elimination and key point identification as part of the heat loss quantification are discussed. The thermal transmittance (or the U-value) of various buildings at the University of North Dakota, in Grand Forks, ND, are estimated from the images captured by aerial thermal cameras mounted on UAVs.