Innovative infrared drone sensor technology offers a promising solution for early bushfire detection and effective firefighting.
The end of winter and beginning of spring increasingly heralds a summer on fire.
The devastation caused by the 2019-20 Black Summer remains seared in Australia’s collective memory. Yet, many Aussies have already forgotten how bad last summer was – 2023 was Australia’s biggest bushfire season in more than a decade, with more land burned than during those Black Summer fires.
As climate change worsens, bushfires are likely to become more intense and frequent. Spotting and attacking blazes early are instrumental to reducing the risk of large-scale fires.
Bushfires are currently tracked by satellites and on the ground through fire towers, patrols, helicopters and aircraft. Drones offer clear advantages, delivering high-resolution images from closer range and providing real-time data. They’re more cost-effective, access remote areas easily and eliminate safety risks for pilots flying in low-altitude, smoke-filled environments.
Infrared (IR) sensors can significantly enhance bushfire management by detecting fires early before they generate large amounts of heat. Even at night-time, they can identify hot spots and monitor vegetation moisture levels, helping predict fire-prone areas. This allows for quicker response times, better resource allocation and more effective containment strategies.
So, the sensible thing to do is to combine these 2 technologies into one awesome firefighting package. Equipped with specialised IR sensors, drones can conduct high-resolution, direct temperature measurements, significantly enhancing our ability to forecast and respond effectively to rapidly changing conditions on the ground.
The high cost of equipping drones with highly sensitive IR limits their widespread use, reducing data availability for firefighters and impacting the accuracy of trend forecasting.
The prohibitive price tag of cutting-edge IR technology is mainly due to the cost of its components. These systems rely on thin mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) films that absorb IR well, producing clear images. To create high-quality MCT films, they must be grown on a compatible semiconductor substrate like cadmium zinc telluride (CZT), as its lattice matches MCT’s structure, reducing defects. However, CZT is expensive, fragile and only available in small sizes. These factors increase costs by limiting how many sensors can be made from each wafer and reducing production efficiency.
Unfortunately, cheaper, larger wafer size and more durable semiconductor alternatives like gallium arsenide (GaAs) or silicon (Si) don’t match the atomic pattern in MCT well, leading to film defects that kill its pixel performance. The challenge is finding a semiconductor base layer that is compatible with the sensing layer to ensure high-quality, defect-free films.
In partnership with ANFF-WA, Dr Wenwu Pan and his team from the University of Western Australia’s Microelectronics Research Group have pioneered a new method for creating MCT-based IR sensors.
They deposit a dual-compatible layer between the base and the film. With nanostructured lattice engineering, a cadmium telluride (CdTe) buffer layer mimics the CZT lattice structure and material quality, enabling MCT film deposition on GaAs and Si substrates. This innovation facilitates large-area and high-quality growth of MCT films at much lower cost.
The use of large, high-quality and more commercially available semiconductor substrates will make widespread, space-based IR imaging more practical. Their method will allow the production of numerous imaging sensors per wafer through multi-chip batch processing, like the high-yield production approach used in integrated circuit fabrication.
This breakthrough creates a more affordable, high-performance MCT IR sensor that will withstand tough environmental conditions, perfect for various applications in imaging, meteorology, and space awareness. This technology can be widely used in bushfire detection, enabling quicker response times and more effective firefighting strategies, ultimately helping to protect lives and property from devastating fires.
Published 15 October 2024 in ANFF’s 2024 Casebook ‘ANFF NEXT‘
Posted 15 July 2025