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Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS -a.k.a. drones) have evolved over the past decade as both advanced military technology and off-the-shelf consumer devices. There is a gradual shift towards public use of drones, which presents opportunities for effective remote procedures that can disrupt a variety of design disciplines. In architecture praxis, UAS equipment with remote sensing gear presents an opportunity for analysis and inspection of existing building stocks, where architects, engineers, building energy auditors as well as owners can document building performance, visualize heat transfer using infrared imaging and create digital models using 3D photogrammetry. Comprehensive energy audits are essential to maximize energy savings in buildings realized from the design and implementation of deep retrofits for building envelopes, together with energy system repairs or changes. This paper presents a methodology for employing a UAS platform to conduct rapid building envelope performance diagnostics and perform aerial assessment mapping of building energy. The investigation reviews various literature that addresses this topic, followed by the identification of a standard procedures for operating a UAS for energy audit missions. The presented framework is then tested on a university campus site to showcase: 1) visually identifying areas of thermal anomalies using a UAS equipped with IR cameras; 2) detailed inspection applied to areas of high interest to quantify envelope heat-flow using computer vision techniques. The overall precision and recall rates of 76% and 74% were achieved in the experimental results, respectively. A discussion of the findings suggests refining procedure accuracy, as a step towards automated envelope inspection.

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