Development research has today, through different technologies, boosted the solar panel manufacturing industry. These technologies allow these solar panels to make the most of solar radiation to produce electricity, and as a result, improve efficiency. These photovoltaic solar panels, whenever they are installed, often have their performance affected by faults and anomalies that lead to a drop in energy efficiency. Many studies have looked into diagnosing, detecting, and locating these faults using algorithms. Building on this research and the experience gained from these systems in operation, several faults have been identified in photovoltaic cells. The goal of this study was to design, based on these different defects, artificial intelligence algorithms to detect, classify, and predict defects on solar panels over time. The model was trained using a neural network with the public database available on GitHub (intended for researchers, public services, solar project developers, and decision-makers). It contains infrared imaging data highlighting anomalies in a photovoltaic solar field. This dataset, made up of 20,000 images, allowed us to create an approximator (neural network) linking the pixels of a thermal image of a photovoltaic module to the presence of defects. During model training, the decrease in training and validation losses shows that this model has learned and can improve its performance. Beyond 20 epochs, the model converges, which means that no additional learning can improve the model's performance. This developed, trained, and validated model was exported to Simulink and allowed us to classify and predict solar panel faults, with an average accuracy of over 95% for some faults and 100% for others.
| Published in | American Journal of Modern Energy (Volume 12, Issue 4) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11 |
| Page(s) | 59-69 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Diagnosis, Panel Defects, Neural Network, Photovoltaic Solar Panels
N° | Class Name | Number of images | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
0 | Single-cell | 1877 | Hot spot appearing on a square module |
1 | Multi-cell | 1288 | Hot spot appearing on a square module within a cell |
2 | Cracking | 941 | Cracking on the module's surface. |
3 | Hot Spot | 251 | Hot spot on a module |
4 | Hot-Spot-Multi | 247 | Multiple hot spots on a module |
5 | Shading | 1056 | Sunlight blocked by vegetation, man-made structures, or adjacent rows. |
6 | Diode | 1499 | One shunt diode is activated, typically affecting 1/3 of the module. |
7 | Multi-Diode | 175 | Several shunt diodes are activated, generally affecting 2/3 of the module. |
8 | Vegetation | 1639 | Panels blocked by vegetation. |
9 | Fouling | 205 | Dirt, dust, or other debris on the module's surface. |
10 | Module not connected to the grid | 828 | The entire module is overheating. |
11 | No anomalies | 10000 | Nominal solar module. |
STC | Standard Test Conditions |
ASTM | American Society for Testing and Materials |
ANN | Artificial Neural Networks |
DND | Deep Netwok Designer |
LSTM | Long Short-Term Memory |
CNN | Convolutional Neural Network |
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APA Style
Herve, M. V. B., Victorien, M. L. A., Michel, N. M., Bernard, M. M. (2026). Classification Panel Defects from Infrared Thermal Images Using Deep Neural Networks. American Journal of Modern Energy, 12(4), 59-69. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11
ACS Style
Herve, M. V. B.; Victorien, M. L. A.; Michel, N. M.; Bernard, M. M. Classification Panel Defects from Infrared Thermal Images Using Deep Neural Networks. Am. J. Mod. Energy 2026, 12(4), 59-69. doi: 10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11
@article{10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11,
author = {Mabikana Voula Boniface Herve and Mabiala Louboto Antoine Victorien and Nkombo Mazouka Michel and M’Passi Mabiala Bernard},
title = {Classification Panel Defects from Infrared Thermal Images Using Deep Neural Networks},
journal = {American Journal of Modern Energy},
volume = {12},
number = {4},
pages = {59-69},
doi = {10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajme.20261204.11},
abstract = {Development research has today, through different technologies, boosted the solar panel manufacturing industry. These technologies allow these solar panels to make the most of solar radiation to produce electricity, and as a result, improve efficiency. These photovoltaic solar panels, whenever they are installed, often have their performance affected by faults and anomalies that lead to a drop in energy efficiency. Many studies have looked into diagnosing, detecting, and locating these faults using algorithms. Building on this research and the experience gained from these systems in operation, several faults have been identified in photovoltaic cells. The goal of this study was to design, based on these different defects, artificial intelligence algorithms to detect, classify, and predict defects on solar panels over time. The model was trained using a neural network with the public database available on GitHub (intended for researchers, public services, solar project developers, and decision-makers). It contains infrared imaging data highlighting anomalies in a photovoltaic solar field. This dataset, made up of 20,000 images, allowed us to create an approximator (neural network) linking the pixels of a thermal image of a photovoltaic module to the presence of defects. During model training, the decrease in training and validation losses shows that this model has learned and can improve its performance. Beyond 20 epochs, the model converges, which means that no additional learning can improve the model's performance. This developed, trained, and validated model was exported to Simulink and allowed us to classify and predict solar panel faults, with an average accuracy of over 95% for some faults and 100% for others.},
year = {2026}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Classification Panel Defects from Infrared Thermal Images Using Deep Neural Networks AU - Mabikana Voula Boniface Herve AU - Mabiala Louboto Antoine Victorien AU - Nkombo Mazouka Michel AU - M’Passi Mabiala Bernard Y1 - 2026/08/11 PY - 2026 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11 DO - 10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11 T2 - American Journal of Modern Energy JF - American Journal of Modern Energy JO - American Journal of Modern Energy SP - 59 EP - 69 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2575-3797 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajme.20261204.11 AB - Development research has today, through different technologies, boosted the solar panel manufacturing industry. These technologies allow these solar panels to make the most of solar radiation to produce electricity, and as a result, improve efficiency. These photovoltaic solar panels, whenever they are installed, often have their performance affected by faults and anomalies that lead to a drop in energy efficiency. Many studies have looked into diagnosing, detecting, and locating these faults using algorithms. Building on this research and the experience gained from these systems in operation, several faults have been identified in photovoltaic cells. The goal of this study was to design, based on these different defects, artificial intelligence algorithms to detect, classify, and predict defects on solar panels over time. The model was trained using a neural network with the public database available on GitHub (intended for researchers, public services, solar project developers, and decision-makers). It contains infrared imaging data highlighting anomalies in a photovoltaic solar field. This dataset, made up of 20,000 images, allowed us to create an approximator (neural network) linking the pixels of a thermal image of a photovoltaic module to the presence of defects. During model training, the decrease in training and validation losses shows that this model has learned and can improve its performance. Beyond 20 epochs, the model converges, which means that no additional learning can improve the model's performance. This developed, trained, and validated model was exported to Simulink and allowed us to classify and predict solar panel faults, with an average accuracy of over 95% for some faults and 100% for others. VL - 12 IS - 4 ER -