Calculation tools flight planning

How does the flight altitude affect the ground resolution (cm/px) of the thermal image for different drones, and what is the width of the image section in each case? In this article, we have compiled various calculators to clarify these questions for your application. Of course, these are approximate values, which may need to be adjusted depending on the specific conditions on the day and at the location of use.

Ground resolution and width of the image section

Since most thermal imaging drones have a fixed lens, the ground resolution (cm/px) of the thermal image and the width of the image section are directly dependent on the respective flight altitude. With this calculator, you can calculate this for different drones.

Maximum speed

Thermal imaging cameras have a fixed integration time, usually 15 ms. If the drone moves too fast, the movement of the scene during recording leads to motion blur. Objects then move from one pixel to another during recording. You get a blurry picture. In addition, the pixel/sensor records a mixed signal and warm objects are more difficult to detect.

In addition to the integration time, the ground resolution naturally plays an essential role. The lower the ground resolution (and the larger the area that is mapped by a pixel), the higher the speed of the drone can be without causing motion blur. A motion blur of 1.7 pixels is usually still tolerable.

Optimal flight altitude

In order to detect an animal in the thermal image and also be able to interpret what species it is, a resolution is ideal in which the animal is mapped on about 14 pixels. With this calculator, you can calculate the recommended flight altitude and ground resolution for different drone models depending on the size of the animal you are looking for. Lying fawns, for example, have a diameter of about 30 cm.

Display duration on the screen

How long a warm object such as a fawn or ground breeder is visible on the screen depends on the flight speed. With this calculator, you can estimate this for different drones.

When choosing the speed, it makes sense that the objects can be detected in the upper half of the monitor so that there is enough time to stop the drone while the object is still visible in the image section. As a rule, depending on the person, the ideal time is 6 to 10 seconds.

Automatic flight planning with the POICloud

The POICloud is a software solution for professional operations in fawn rescue and species protection, but also in other areas of application. One function of the POICloud is fully automatic flight planning with precise terrain flight.

Automatic flight planning and transfer

The POICloud plans waypoint and mapping flights fully automatically based on configurable templates and automatically transfers the missions to all connected remote controls. For your areas, you can create multiple templates and thus have the ideal flight parameters for your application scenario without any effort.

Mehr Informationen über die POICloud

Mehr Informationen über die POICloud und unsere App und Desktop-Software findet ihr auf der Seite POISuite.

Mehr erfahren

Die POICloud kostenlos erhalten

Mit jeder Drohne von uns erhältst du dauerhaft kostenlos unser Softwarepaket POISuite – eine leistungsstarke Lösung, die weit mehr kann als eine herkömmliche Drohne.

Zum Online-Shop