Solar module inspection drone

The project SolarADLER aims to develop a mobile system that can diagnose solar panels via electroluminescence. This measurement uncovers different kinds of defects that can be caused by wearing, weather or manufacturing errors. By using a drone, this method can be expanded to solar parks that have already been installed. The non-contact analysis makes conventional, manual ground-based measurements unnecessary. The drone will approach, record and analyse each module automatically. In order to make this project possible, many new developments are necessary. Among these is a new mobile sCMOS-camera, an automatic defect localisation and sophisticated image-stabilisation methods, adapted to this specific scenario.