An application of stereo thermal vision to perform preliminary inspection operations of electrical power lines by a particular class of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aka Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), is presented in this paper. The proposed hardware and software setup allows the detection of overheated power equipment, one of the major causes of power outages. The stereo vision complements the GPS information by finely detecting the potential source of damage while also providing a measure of the harm extension. The reduced sizes and the light weight of the vehicle enable to survey areas otherwise difficult to access with standard UAVs. Gazebo simulations and real flight experiments demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed setup.

翻译：本文提出了一种利用立体热视觉技术，由特定小型无人飞行器（UAV，即微型无人飞行器MAV）执行电力线路初步检测操作的应用。所提出的硬件与软件系统能够检测过热电力设备——这是导致停电的主要原因之一。立体视觉通过精确定位潜在损坏源并测量危害范围，对GPS信息形成补充。该飞行器体积小、重量轻，能够勘测常规无人机难以到达的区域。Gazebo仿真与实际飞行实验验证了所提出系统的可行性与有效性。