Case study by SPH Engineering · Ground Penetrating Radar · Water utilities
Detecting a buried water pipe with drone-mounted GPR in France
Innotech-Drone, an SPH Engineering partner in France, built a drone GPR system with UgCS to find underground water distribution pipes. In a test at Teillé with its client Balé SE, the drone located a plastic pipe buried 1 m deep.
The challenge
Water pipelines are usually traced with a GPR cart. Carts move slowly, cannot always reach the ground above the pipe and do not run automatic missions.
The solution
Innotech-Drone put a 500 MHz GPR on a multi-rotor heavy-lift drone, with UgCS for flight planning. A LiDAR sensor on the drone handled terrain following. The team flew the drone first, then surveyed the same pipe with a GPR cart to compare positions.
The result
The drone survey found the pipe. On average, its position differed from the cart result by about 20 cm. Innotech-Drone put the difference down to GPS and GPR accuracy, and planned to use RTK for georeferencing to improve it.
This is a short 2021 news post, so it gives fewer details than SPH Engineering's later case studies.
Where this applies in India
- tracing water distribution lines where records are incomplete;
- locating plastic and other non-metallic pipes that metal locators can miss;
- pipeline routes across fields or rough ground where a cart is slow.
SPH Engineering's GPR training is also available through HobiTech.
The equipment, available from HobiTech
| Ground penetrating radar | A 500 MHz GPR (model not named). Our current 500 MHz drone GPR is the RadSys Zond Aero 500. |
| Terrain following | A LiDAR sensor was used. Today we supply SkyHub by SPH Engineering with True Terrain Following. |
| Flight planning | UgCS - Drone Flight Planning Software |
| Drone | A multi-rotor heavy-lift drone (model not named). Ask us for current compatible drones. |
Case study by SPH Engineering, published August 2021. This page summarises it in our own words; the test was carried out by Innotech-Drone with its client Balé SE, not by HobiTech. Read the original case study on SPH Engineering ↗
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Need to trace buried pipes?
Tell us the pipe material, likely depth and route length. We will recommend the GPR, drone, SkyHub and UgCS setup, quoted in rupees with a GST invoice.