Thermal drone

[SteelRain]

Which company/companies sale the Phantom 3/4 or Mavic Pro with a good quality thermal camera setup something FLIR 336 boson or VUE pro sensor.

Also which Thermal lens FOV would you choose /be best for flying a drone, yet still have tight enough FOV to ID critters/people at normal flying range maybe 250 ft up with 300-600FT out front.

Last, do any of these thermal setups work through the DJI app camera FPV like flying or do they all need a second display to view FLIR image on?

 

[Lapeer20m]

You can get flir on dji inspire drones.

Also can get flir on matrice 200 series.

I'm not sure what is available for mavic or phantom.

 

[SteelRain]

You can get flir on dji inspire drones.

Also can get flir on matrice 200 series.

I'm not sure what is available for mavic or phantom.

Yep, I've seen the FLIR systems for the big boy DJI models, but was wondering if anyone produced a quality setup for the Phantom series or maybe even Mavic with smaller/cheaper FLIR sensors like the lepton/boson hitting the market now.

I see several other model/brand commercial models that have IR cameras in works using cheaper 160 Class thermal lepton Flir cores which are Alittle under power resolution wise.
I was looking for a least a 320/336 class core maybe 9mm lens.

Dronesplus in Dallas makes aftermarket setups for phantoms fixed or gimbaled mount but that's really the only one I know of in the USA. I think their setups use a second display though.

 

[go fast]

You can get flir on dji inspire drones.

Also can get flir on matrice 200 series.

I'm not sure what is available for mavic or phantom.

Yea you can't change the camera on the Mavic or phantom so probably nothing right now unless someday they come with infrared cameras...

 

[SteelRain]

It maybe time to start researching the Inspire 1 then

 

[go fast]

I also have the Inspire 1 best (video , pictures ) & smoothest flying A/C and will accept the FLIR infrared camera...

 

[tmoerel]

Problem is that most of those smal FLIR sensors have a resolution of only 80x60 pixels with some going to 160x120. That is not a lot to get a decent image.
They get away with it in the FLIR cameras as they overlay a video image with the thermal image making it look like a higher resolution. Problem is that if you want to use in total darkness the video image will be black and you will be left with a collection of blobs in IR.

 

[SteelRain]

You are right on there personally I would consider 160 and below pixel to be about useless in total darkness. I have several thermal systems now monoculars and scopes when you hit 320 class you start getting a decent image and 640's look fantastic.

 

[MavicCF]

There is a company that sells them for the phantom series. Here is a link. Resolution is 640x512 or 336x256 depending on how much you want to pay. -CF

 

[Mavic Ray]

There is a company that sells them for the phantom series. Here is a link. Resolution is 640x512 or 336x256 depending on how much you want to pay. -CF

Very pricey but these guys seem to do flir with the mavic Dronexpert | ‘Read-to-fly’ thermal DJI Mavic pro with FLIR Lepton 160

 

[LivinLarge]

The Typhoon H has an available FLIR camera which also has a visible light sensor. It's kinda pricey.

 

[SteelRain]

Just a update found that flyhighusa sales a thermal Mavic pro using the newest boson 320 FLIR thermal sensor.

 

[FlyGuy8675309]

Not for the OP, but for others looking into this. There are also set-ups for DJI's commercial line where you have a traditional camera as well as a thermal camera attached. The idea is the pilot uses the regular feed and a camera operator uses a separate controller for the thermal.

But.......
You need to have some FU money to build something this cool.

 

[SteelRain]

That is pretty much how the flyhighusa Mavic setup works. I spoke to them the new boson 320 core is very, very tiny and lite weight. You still have the 4K day camera and mounted on the under carriage is the boson. Also the boson is a new 12 micron FLIR core and ground breaking performance for a 320 class thermal core.


It uses a separate monitor for the thermal feed and the whole setup added very little weight so you still have around 20 minutes in the air. Only draw back is you have only around 3000ft for thermal live feed with these type of setups.

I personally have been into ground based thermal gear for years it's very costly stuff , but haven't put one into the air yet. I plan to do that very soon

 

[BigAl07]

This one may be worth looking into:

 

[Eat More Possum]

To repeat the OP's unanswered question (same question I have):
"Also which Thermal lens FOV would you choose /be best for flying a drone, yet still have tight enough FOV to ID critters/people at normal flying range maybe 250 ft up with 300-600FT out front?"

 

[Lapeer20m]

I found some great webinars by a guy from flir corporation discussing flir.

He made some charts that had the max height above the ground you could realistically detect a human.

According to him, For 200’ elevation you need a 19mm for utilizing a 640 camera. If you tilt the camera to 30 degrees you can fly even higher.

As a side note, a 640 camera works out to just less than 1/3 of a megapixel.

Imagine the difficulty of locating a kid with such a low resolution camera....then imagine having one that is half of that...or a quarter.

Zero degree tilt, looking straight down:



30 degree tilt




Here is the video. It’s an hour long.

 

[Lapeer20m]

I just specked a new matrice for our fire deartment and we opted for 19mm fov on the 640 xt2.

It was a struggle to decide on 19 vs 13. Ultimately, the 19 allows safe flight over trees and other obstacles while still allowing good performance on the ground.

From my limited understanding of photography , you can always “zoom out” by flying higher and obtaining the same field of view you would get with a “wider lenses” at lower altitude.

During SAR, a drone is limited by how low it can fly due to obstacles, it can fligh much higher than required, so having the most “zoomed in” camera seems the most practical.

With the least amount of zoom, the 9mm fov, the maximum height at which you can likely detect a human is a bit over 50 feet agl.

In the dark with trees and other obstacles, this is really low and quite risky for the aircraft.