How a thermal drone inspection works on a production floor
Conveyor motors, drives and steam traps sit at ceiling height where nobody looks at them until something fails. A radiometric thermal drone can survey an entire line in a shift without stopping production. Here is the workflow.
Routine thermal inspections on a production floor have a cost that has nothing to do with the camera: lifts, ladders, lockouts and the time it takes a technician to reach every asset. A drone reaches the same assets in minutes and records the result in a form you can compare next quarter.
Step one: walk the line
Before anything flies, we walk the line with your maintenance lead. We confirm asset identifiers, note what is running and what is not, and agree on the warn and alarm thresholds that matter for your equipment.
Step two: fly visual and thermal
Each asset gets two frames: a visual photo that shows the motor number or tag, and a radiometric thermal frame that records a calibrated temperature for every pixel. Radiometric is the important word. It means the temperature can be read from the file later, not just estimated from a colored picture.
Step three: report
The report opens with ambient temperature and the thresholds, then lists every asset with its measured temperature and its visual and thermal pair. Anything over the warn threshold is flagged; anything over alarm is called out for immediate attention. On repeat visits, the report shows the trend.
The goal is not a pretty thermal image. The goal is a list your team can act on Monday morning.
Indoor flight is its own skill. GPS does not work inside a plant, so the aircraft is flown manually with obstacle sensing, and we plan each run so production can keep moving.
