Night vision, generally, is the ability to see with human eye even in low-light conditions. There exists more technique of how to make night vision possible and one of them is using the detection of infrared light through thermal cameras.
Night vision drone – basic principle
The basic principle of thermal imaging lies in detection of the temperature difference between background and foreground objects. Every object on Earth emits an infrared radiation (thermal radiation) and if the thermal contrast is sufficient, a thermal camera is capable to detect the thermal scene and enables a human eye to see the same thing, as some of the animal are capable of – to see even at night or at bad weather condition.
And then, if there is such a great way to catch reality on every time of the day, why not to make those thermographic measurements even more efficient by combining the advantages of the thermal camera with drone (unmanned aerial vehicle)? There are many applications, that can benefit from using the night vision drone such as: to help firefighters see through smoke, to help farmers monitor crop health from above, or to assist in search and rescue operations.
An issue can be finding the right balance between making a good night vision (thermal) camera and a useful drone. It is necessary to make a bit of sacrifice from drone battery life, caused by the weights of infrared camera and therefore, it is very important to choose the right drone and thermal camera combination.
Good night vision drone combination
Good night vision drone combination will work just as we would want it. It must give a clear and detailed picture that is easy to see with goggles or via your smartphone. One of the thermal camera, that is highly suitable as for night vision drone is the Workswell WIRIS Security thermal camera, that is specialized to be used with drone.
The WIRIS Security thermal camera has high resolution and thermal sensitivity to offer. In fact, this camera comes equipped by the highest resolution on the market for both the RGB sensor and the thermal imaging sensor. In practice, this may mean the difference between life and death, especially in search and rescue application.
Workswell WIRIS Security is a non-radiometrics thermal camera for drones we colling simply night vision drones. Main parameters of WIRIS Security camera are a very high thermal resolution 800x600px, high frame rate 25 Hz and perfect thermal sensitivity 40 mK. You can see the relevancy of these parameters in the video that showing monitoring of objects of different distances and sizes using the WIRIS Security thermal camera.
Workswell supplies WIRIS Security along with the thermal drone to offer a ready-to-fly solution for your night vision or search and rescue applications.
RTSP video streaming, image, and command transfer through Wi-Fi are among the other WIRIS OS functionalities. These features are provided by the RJ 45 Ethernet port. See more information on the Stream SDK tutorial.
RGB camera is also important for night vision drone
Another great advantage of the Workswell WIRIS Security thermal camera and also the reason why it is great solution for night vision drone is its specialized RGB camera. The WIRIS Security thermal camera comes equipped with an incorporated specialized visual band imagery RGB camera with high-sensitivity dusk and night vision and 30x optical ZOOM. Thus, the RGB camera image is clear even at minimum light of 0.0008 lux.
Night vision drone is great opportunity for those, who care about the best way of how to operate with drone (with appropriate permits) even at night and yet, get the best that drones have to offer.