Drive-by heat mapping
In 2007, Google unleashed a fleet of cars with roof-mounted cameras to provide street-level images of roads around the world. Now MIT spinout Essess is bringing similar “drive-by” innovations to energy efficiency in homes and businesses. The startup deploys cars with thermal-imaging rooftop rigs that create heat maps of thousands of homes and buildings per hour, detecting fixable leaks in “building envelopes” — windows, doors, walls, and foundations — to help owners curb energy loss. About the size of a large backpack, Essess’ rig includes several long-wave infrared radiometric cameras and near-infrared cameras. These cameras capture heat signatures, while a LiDAR system captures 3-D images to discern building facades from the physical environment. An onboard control system has software to track the route and manage the cameras. On the software side, computer vision and machine-learning algorithms stitch together the images, extract features, and filter out background objects. In one night, the cars can...