Solar PV Panel inspection intelligence for energy asset operators

Solar energy operators face an inspection challenge that grows with every megawatt commissioned: more panels, more sites, more O&M complexity, and greater financial exposure when faults go undetected. Manual inspection workflows including ground-based walkovers, rope-access, and helicopter overflights are slow, labour-intensive, and produce inconsistent data that is difficult to act on at portfolio scale.

Orb replaces manual solar PV inspection workflows with a governed, repeatable, and auditable inspection program, from autonomous drone mission planning and structured thermal and visual capture, through automated fault detection and condition assessment, to direct integration with the asset management and O&M systems your operations teams already use.

Governed inspection programs across solar portfolios

The mission planning and autonomous flight capabilities in Unleash live Orb are configured to the specific requirements of solar PV inspection, accounting for array geometry, panel model, row spacing, image overlap requirements, resolution targets, and environmental and airspace constraints. Inspection profiles are standardized by asset type and array configuration, ensuring repeatable data quality across panels, sites, and inspection cycles year-on-year. Fleet-level orchestration supports multi-site inspection programs across distributed solar portfolios and geographically dispersed drone teams, enabling consistent inspection standards across the full portfolio without manual coordination at each site.

Thermographic and visual fault detection across 15 fault classes

Cortex, Unleash live computer vision intelligence engine, analyses both thermal and visual imagery to detect faults and condition changes across solar PV assets delivering a 93% accurate fault class detection rate across 15 solar panel and component fault classes. Thermographic analysis identifies hotspots, diode failures, and string disconnects that are invisible to visual inspection alone. Visual analysis detects soiling, shadowing, surface cracking, and vegetation encroachment.

Detection results are structured and aligned to O&M workflows, giving asset management teams the specific, prioritized intelligence required to schedule maintenance intervention before faults degrade energy output.

A structured audit trail for inspection compliance and asset management

Every Orb inspection program produces a complete, traceable inspection record, from mission configuration through capture to detection output and maintenance action. Standardized capture profiles, version-controlled model outputs, and structured condition reports give asset management and compliance functions the documentation required to demonstrate inspection governance across the full solar portfolio, supporting ongoing O&M program management and long-term asset health tracking.

From fault detection to maintenance action without manual data transfer

Orb integrates via APIs with asset management, work scheduling, and reporting systems including SAP, Maximo, and PowerBI, routing fault detections, condition assessments, and inspection records directly into existing O&M workflows. Inspection findings trigger work orders and asset register updates without manual data entry, reducing the time from fault detection to maintenance scheduling and eliminating duplicate reporting across the portfolio.