A team of three students from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, have developed a drone fitted with a thermal camera that can monitor buildings’ energy efficiency.

Being developed by Americo Pino, Ken Brooksbank and Kai Pham, the new concept is designed to give a comprehensive evaluation of energy use.

The civil and environmental engineering students are also intending to commercialise their concept and have named their start-up as Drone Wrangler. They are currently exploring the diversity and viability of the new drone technology to create environmental value across various industries, including energy, agriculture and construction.

"Our drone lifts off automatically and can link to around 17 satellites at a time, so it’s very precise in the images it takes and very safe to fly."

Pino said: "Energy efficiency is important in buildings for environmental and economic reasons but some equipment used to measure it is expensive and doesn’t always give a full reading.

"Drones can make these types of inspections more comprehensive and thermal imaging technology takes this a step further. Our drone lifts off automatically and can link to around 17 satellites at a time, so it’s very precise in the images it takes and very safe to fly.

"We’ve also had a lot of support from the university’s estates services, particularly Ian McKay in building services and energy, and environmental manager Dean Drobot."

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A test flight was recently conducted, in which the drone surveyed four buildings on Strathclyde’s campus, namely the Wolfson, Architecture, John Anderson and Sir William Duncan buildings, as well as a fifth building at the university’s playing fields at Stepps.

Each evaluation took nearly 30min and the students are currently analysing the data.