TOPODRONE Advances Airborne Bathymetric Surveying with AQUAMAPPER Launch at INTERGEO 2022

October 18, 2022 – Montreux, Switzerland – TOPODRONE, a Swiss based designer and manufacturer of high-precision LiDAR equipment for installation on drones, vehicles and backpacks, launches AQUAMAPPER, a UAV-based solution for bathymetric surveying and marine construction. The new multitasking data collecting device and TOPODRONE LiDAR ULTRA equipment have been successfully used together for airborne surveying at a highway construction project in Romania, EU to deliver a full digital twin of a studied area.

AQUAMAPPER is a brand new hardware developed in-house by TOPODRONE and contributes to a complete set of photogrammetry, LiDAR and bathymetry surveying solutions. This new product mounted on a UAV provides a combination of high speed efficiency (up to 14 km/h) and accuracy. It is a PPK ready solution, compatible with DJI Matrice 300 RTK. The application areas include but are not limited to an open sea bathymetric survey up to 100m depth, quantity survey and calculation of sediments, periodic maintenance survey of storage pools.

TOPODRONE AQUAMAPPER and LIDAR ULTRA have been used for airborne surveying at “Autostrada Sibiu – Pitești, Secțiunea 2: Boița – Cornetu”, a European road construction project. It aims at building a highway in one of the toughest terrain in Romania and includes 7 tunnels, 24 bridges and 18 viaducts. The drone LiDAR corridor and bathymetric survey was performed by Romanian GRAPHEIN TOPO SA company to provide accurate maps and up-to-date information about terrain level, buildings, roads, power line networks, cadastral boundaries etc as well as rivers. TOPODRPONE LIDAR ULTRA on board DJI M300 drone was used to capture laser scanning data from 100 – 120 meters altitude over rugged terrain forest area to cover 32 km long and 400 meters width corridor within 14 flights while AQUAMAPPER connected to the same DJI M300 drone performed bathymetry survey over 6 river crossing.

“The key advantage of the new bathymetric equipment from TOPODRONE is the ability to capture a riverbed with centimeters level accuracy with high speed in fully automatic mode and without using any boat. It allows us to work in hard to access and shallow water areas. The same drone carrier can be used for both LiDAR & bathymetry surveys. The combination of an echosounder, GNSS and Inertial measurement system helps to get accurate results after data post processing,” Andrei Sueran, GRAPHEIN TOPO SA, explains.

AQUAMAPPER is showcased at INTERGEO 2022. To learn more about the solution visit stand #F2.029 in Hall 2, October, 18-20, Essen or visit the website https://topodrone.com/product/bathymetry/213/

About TOPODRONE

TOPODRONE (topodrone.com) is a Swiss based designer and manufacturer of high-precision lidar equipment for installation on drones, vehicles and backpacks. TOPODRONE’s lidar solutions are used for mapping and 3D modeling as well as forest and agricultural monitoring. Their advanced post-processing software provides users with easy-to-use innovative data processing workflows for automatic data generation, georeferencing and alignment using GNSS and IMU data post processing, and SLAM algorithms.