High-Precision UAV Thermal Infrared Sensing and Processing
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Remote Sensing Image Processing".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2026 | Viewed by 343
Special Issue Editors
Interests: photogrammetry; UAV; image processing; change detection; image registration; UAV sensor fusion
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
UAV-based thermal infrared (TIR) sensing has become a key technology for acquiring high-precision thermal information with flexibility and fine spatial detail. Compared with satellite or ground systems, UAV TIR platforms enable targeted, on-demand measurements and support advances in radiometric correction, geometric refinement, multi-sensor integration, and intelligent processing techniques.
Recent progress in lightweight TIR sensors, calibration methods, flight optimization, fusion with RGB or LiDAR, and AI-driven thermal analysis has further expanded the capability of UAV thermal imaging. Nonetheless, challenges such as emissivity variation, angular distortion, and environmental effects continue to drive research toward more accurate sensing and processing pipelines.
This Special Issue invites high-quality studies focused on improving the precision, reliability, and interpretability of UAV TIR data. Topics of interest include radiometric and geometric correction, TIR orthophoto generation, deep learning-based enhancement, multi-sensor fusion, spatiotemporal thermal pattern analysis, and new hardware or operational strategies. Both original research and review papers are welcome.
By gathering cutting-edge methodologies and case studies, this Special Issue aims to advance the next generation of UAV thermal infrared sensing and processing technologies. We look forward to your valuable contributions.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- UAV thermal infrared imaging methods and applications.
- Data acquisition strategies for UAV-based thermal surveys.
- Radiometric calibration and temperature accuracy improvement.
- Geometric correction, alignment, and TIR orthomosaic generation.
- Multi-sensor integration with RGB, multispectral, hyperspectral, or LiDAR.
- Deep learning and machine learning techniques for TIR data processing.
- Object detection, anomaly identification, and pattern recognition using TIR imagery.
- Spatiotemporal thermal monitoring of urban, agricultural, or environmental systems.
- Industrial inspection and infrastructure diagnostics using UAV TIR.
- TIR-based digital twins and 3D thermal modeling.
- Hardware development and new UAV-compatible thermal sensors.
- UAV flight planning, automation, and mission optimization for thermal mapping.
- Benchmark datasets, evaluation methods, and validation frameworks for TIR studies.
- Energy, environment, disaster response, and public safety applications of UAV TIR.
Dr. Kirim Lee
Prof. Dr. Won-Hee Lee
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- UAV thermal infrared remote sensing
- thermal image processing
- geometric correction
- radiometric calibration
- multi-sensor fusion
- land surface temperature
- thermal orthophoto generation
- deep learning for thermal imaging
- thermal anomaly detection
- thermal feature extraction
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