Methods to improve high-resolution airborne thermal infrared (TIR) imagery in support of urban waste heat mapping, monitoring and metrics

This proposal builds on 5 years of research in the award winning HEAT (Heat Energy Assessment Technologies) project. Every year, billions of GJ of wasted heat leave millions of buildings in thousands of cities world-wide. In an effort to support urban energy efficiency, this research proposes four novel image post-processing techniques to improve/verify the geometry, radiometry and the processing of large volumes of high-resolution airborne thermal infrared (TIR) imagery. Results are expected to enable faster and more accurate urban waste heat mapping and refined waste heat metrics. Analysis will take place on 825km2 of TABI-1800 airborne TIR data acquired at night (2012) over the city of Calgary, Alberta at a 50cm spatial resolution and 5/100 deg C thermal resolution. The planned benefit to Uncommon Innovation (the Partner) is the opportunity to commercialize these improved HEAT products as green web services, which are increasingly being requested by municipalities, utilities, and Realtors to support urban energy efficiency, low carbon living and green buildings worldwide.

Faculty Supervisor:

Geoffrey Hay

Student:

Man Fai Wu

Partner:

Uncommon Innovation

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Energy

University:

University of Calgary