Automatic visual inspection under solar panels in Photovoltaics for linkage to IoT platform

Abstract

In the periodic inspection of Photovoltaics, since the inspection target area is vast, it is desired that labor-saving and low-cost maintenance management using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), artificial intelligence (AI) and so on. Many inspection systems for the upper surface of solar panels have been developed. However, there was no inspection system that could detect various defects under the solar panels. Therefore, we have developed an automatic inspection system for the underside of the solar panels. By suspending the camera from the UAV to take pictures, stable shooting under the solar panels was realized in response to various ground surface environments. In addition, by using an AI model created from normal imaging data, we succeeded in detecting various defects.