Imagine trying to measure a rushing river during a flood, but it's too dangerous to stand in the water. Instead of risky manual measurements, this system uses drones equipped with special radars and sonars to 'see' through the water and measure flow from the air. It's like giving a drone a high-tech ruler and speedometer to map rivers without ever touching the surface.
Traditional river monitoring relies on fixed stations that are expensive to maintain, lack spatial coverage, and often break during the very floods they are meant to measure.
A drone-borne system featuring four specific payloads: a radar altimeter, sonar, water penetrating radar, and a Doppler radar velocimetry payload.
If you are a bridge builder dealing with unpredictable riverbed changes — this project developed drone-borne bathymetry and velocimetry payloads that provide high-resolution river data. This allows for safer site surveys in remote areas without installing permanent sensors. It is expected to be 2-3 times cheaper than traditional in-situ surveying.
If you are a consultant dealing with evolving flood and drought risks — this project developed a system that integrates drone data with satellite EO missions like Sentinel-3. This provides accurate, spatio-temporally resolved information for risk assessment and investment analysis. It enables monitoring in hard-to-reach alpine or arctic regions.
If you are a regulator dealing with water allocation conflicts between countries — this project developed a contactless airborne observing system. It provides key variables like discharge and water surface elevation without needing ground-based stations that are often vulnerable to failure during floods. This ensures continuous data flow for smart governance.
Based on the project objective, the UAWOS hydrometric monitoring solutions are expected to be factor 2-3 cheaper compared to traditional in-situ surveying.
Yes, the project has developed radar altimeter, sonar, water penetrating radar, and Doppler radar payloads that are already commercially available from SPH Engineering.
Based on available project data, the specific licensing terms are not listed, but the hardware payloads are integrated with and available through SPH Engineering.
The system integrates airborne data streams with water and land elevation datasets from satellite missions including Sentinel-3, ICESat-2, and SWOT.
The project period runs from 2023-02-01 to 2027-01-31.
The consortium is heavily industry-weighted with 60% industrial partners (6 out of 10), including 6 SMEs. This strong commercial presence, combined with 2 universities and 1 research center across 8 countries, indicates a high focus on commercial viability and market deployment rather than just theoretical research.
Contact Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) regarding the UAWOS drone payloads.
Contact us to connect with the UAWOS consortium for drone-borne hydrometry integration.
