Solar Panel Inspection Flights, Built for Arrays

Whether it's a 2-string residential rooftop or a 100-acre utility-scale farm, Muninn plans the coverage grid, keeps altitude locked, and turns a thermal drone into a hotspot-finding machine.

Built for this mission

Locked altitude = locked GSD

Thermal cameras are unforgiving about consistent distance. Muninn's terrain-follow ignores array-mount height but holds constant altitude across the field.

Native Mavic 3T / Matrice H20T support

Drone catalog knows about the dual-thermal payloads. Gimbal pitch, focal length, and capture interval are clamped to each payload's limits automatically.

Re-fly during the heat-of-the-day window

IR inspections need consistent irradiance. Save the mission, re-fly at 1-2pm every quarter, compare thermal deltas to track degradation.

Recommended settings

Starting values for this use case. Tune to your drone, your lighting, and your target.

Mission Type
Area (tight rectangle per array block)
Altitude
25-40m AGL for single-axis residential; 50-80m for utility-scale
Overlap
80% front / 75% side (thermal NDVI-style overlap)
Gimbal
-90° (nadir) for thermal, -75° for visual hotspot ID
Capture
Continuous time-interval 2-3s for thermal; hover & shoot for visual
Best Drone
M3T, M30T, or H20T payload for thermal. Air 3S visual-only.

How to fly it

  1. 1Draw polygon tight to the array perimeter.
  2. 2Altitude 30m, overlap 80/75, nadir gimbal, thermal capture mode.
  3. 3Run between 11am-2pm local for max irradiance contrast.
  4. 4Export KMZ, verify airspace, fly autonomously.
  5. 5Post-process thermal TIFFs in FLIR Tools or DJI TSDK.
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Questions we hear

Do I need a thermal drone?

Only for finding hotspots (pre-failure detection). Visual inspections (cracked glass, soiling, vegetation) work on any drone. Upgrade to M3T / M30T / H20T when you want to sell IR reports.

What's the right altitude?

Close enough for cell-level detail (~25-40m) for residential. Farms scale up to 80m. Muninn's GSD readout tells you the actual cm/px at any altitude before you fly.

Can Muninn output thermal orthomosaics?

Muninn's cloud processing handles visual photogrammetry today; thermal ortho requires specialized pipelines (WebODM-thermal, FLIR Thermal Studio). On the roadmap.

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