USING DRONE TECHNOLOGY FOR HEAT LOSS

Drones, which are changing our lives more and more every day, will measure heat loss. Burak Çiçeksoy, Hakan Kayan, and Oğuzhan Ulucan, students at Department of Electrical and Electronics, Izmir University of Economics (IUE), combined drone and thermal camera and started to measure heat loss in buildings with the software they developed for their “Heat Loss Control with Drone” project. Students, who are funded by TUBITAK Program offering support for research projects of undergraduate students, aim to come up with an innovative solution for controlling loss of energy.

The young entrepreneurs will be measuring the heat loss occurring especially in the rooftops and facade of the buildings, and share the information such as the extent of the heat loss and its financial cost with the users. This way, users will be able to start saving and get informed about heat loss issue whose importance is increasing day by day.

Senior student Hakan Kayan gave information about their project and he said that they built the drone themselves. “Energy loss is one of the major problems of today’s world. It burns a hole in people’s pockets. While the ratio of heat loss in rooftops is 25%, it goes up to 35% in building facades. Thermal imaging of especially tall buildings is extremely difficult. We found out that if a 120 m² house, which is heated through natural gas, is not insulated well enough, it may cost up to one thousand  200 TL financial loss for the homeowners,” said Kayan.

‘Drone, thermal camera and software combined’

Kayan stated that they wanted to make up a shortage in that area, and they planned to do fast and correct measuring, and use a drone as an innovative approach in their project. He stated that they would be able to reach the rooftops of tall buildings easily and quickly. Kayan said, “We analyze the images we get from the thermal camera attached to the drone with the software we developed and we detect heat losses. After processing the images on the computer, we show users where the heat loss is occurring and let them know about the potential financial loss they would be facing”.