Smart sonar and accessible hydrography

The Challenge

Sonar technology has been well established over many decades to conduct underwater measurements surveys such as measuring river-bed make up for environmental assessment. However these surveys require extensive training, skills and unwieldy equipment. The industry is also moving towards the usage of autonomous survey vessels  (drone-based) to perform sonar measruments, which require more portable and simpler systems for single-person operation.  There is a need to develop enhanced manufacturing capabilities of these sonars, and a more automated way to capture and analyse the data.

The Solution

The solution is to create a single-operator survey vessel built with a custom sonar and integrated software. Collaborating with CEE Hydrosystems, a team of researchers from Macquarie University and the University of Wollongong will lead the path to build custom transducers able to improve the minimum depth measurement and also to the reduce the size, weight and power for drone operation. The project looks at a new design of a piezo transducer and to integrate existing bathymetry software to the drone-based system.

Industry Partner

University Partners