SPH Engineering Case Studies

How Urban Systems in Canada cut bathymetric field time by about 75% by moving from boats to a drone echo sounder with UgCS.

Since 2025, Best Survey has surveyed a water pond of about 15,000 m² in the mine’s tailings storage facility in Mongolia, using an ECT D052S echo sounder on a DJI M350 RTK with SkyHub and UgCS.

ERELIS flew an SPH Engineering drone echo sounder over the Mediterranean and Dead Sea. Results matched earlier boat surveys of the same areas.

Oseanland Survei Indonesia mapped a swampy mine water body in Sulawesi with a DJI M350 RTK, ECT D052S echo sounder, SkyHub and UgCS. No boat needed.

How drone GPR flagged burning coal pockets and a drone echo sounder measured reservoir sediment at El Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia.

UAWOS researchers combined Geolux LX-80 and RSS-2-AB radars with a Zond Aero LF and in-situ instruments in Benin to measure flow velocity, riverbed geometry and water level.

How Westward Geology Group mapped a turbid, 30 ft deep quarry pond for Knife River with a dual-frequency drone echo sounder.

How Aerial Development Services used a drone echo sounder, SkyHub and UgCS to locate a sunken boat 450 m offshore in a high-altitude lake in Ecuador.

How Aeromedia combined drone LiDAR, photogrammetry and an SPH Engineering echo sounder to map land and reservoir along a 10 km corridor in Spain.

Urban Systems used an SPH Engineering drone echo sounder with SkyHub and True Terrain Following to map storm ponds and wetlands it could not reach on foot.

Patriot Environmental mapped a West Texas frac pond with a drone echo sounder, SkyHub and UgCS: 22 ft deep, 790,603 barrels, plus a strap chart.

UAWOS researchers surveyed 10 km of the Rönne Å with drone radar, echo sounder and GPR: water level under 3 cm precision, depth within ±8 cm.

How Mohawk College and the City of Hamilton checked a drone echo sounder against LiDAR and photogrammetry for stormwater pond volumes.

At the UAV 2022 summer school in Tartu, SPH Engineering and Topodrone merged photogrammetry, LiDAR and drone echo sounder data into one digital twin.

Geosense mapped about 1.5 km² of shallow coastal water in Chalkidiki, Greece, with an SPH Engineering drone echo sounder kit to monitor erosion.

How Patriot Environmental replaced sonar boats with a drone echo sounder to survey lined coal mine reclamation ponds in Texas.

How Altomaxx measured water and sediment depth in 13 Ontario stormwater ponds with a dual-frequency drone echo sounder.

Mississippi State University compared 11,439 drone echo sounder depths with LiDAR of a drained pond: ±6.6 cm RMSE and R² 86.6% after filtering.

How Chile's Ministry of Public Works measured volumes in four drought-hit Coquimbo reservoirs with a drone echo sounder and SkyHub.

A joint NCDOT and Mississippi State study validated UgCS and SkyHub for hydrographic surveys. The drone sonar reached 6.6 cm RMSE vertical accuracy.

How Altomaxx mapped water and sediment depth in Calgary's fast-flowing Bow River with a dual-frequency drone echo sounder for riprap planning.

SPH Engineering and Frontier Precision Unmanned flew a Zond Aero 500 GPR over a pond. Its depths were within a few cm of echo sounder check lines.

A developer flew a RadSys Zond Aero LF GPR with SkyHub on a DJI M300 RTK, mapping walls up to 8 m high and confirming the 3.6 m design block depth.

Innotech-Drone flew a 500 MHz GPR with UgCS over a plastic water pipe buried 1 m deep in France, within about 20 cm of a cart survey.

Université de Sherbrooke flew a 500 MHz GPR on a drone and pulled it on a cart over a frozen river. Ice thickness matched.

SPaRS-Lab used a Zond Aero LF drone GPR with SkyHub and UgCS to image rock glaciers in Quebec, reaching up to ~20 m deep.

Altomaxx flew Zond Aero 500 GPR and MagDrone R3 on a DJI M350 RTK over the remote Mimbres site in New Mexico, revealing buried features.

University of Arizona flew a MALÅ GeoDrone 80 GPR with SkyHub and UgCS at 3 m over rock glaciers in Alaska and Wyoming, mapping up to 48.6 m thick.

GEORESEARCH mapped snow depth from under 1 m to over 4 m at Stubai Glacier with a Zond Aero 1000 drone GPR, R² 0.93 against probes.

SPH Engineering's use case on five common utility-mapping mistakes and how drone-mounted GPR helps avoid them.

SPH Engineering and SENSYS tested a drone-mounted Zond Aero 1000 GPR on buried UXO and landmines: 14 of 45 targets found. Best paired with a magnetometer.

GEORESEARCH flew a Zond Aero 1000 GPR over steep alpine snow at Kitzsteinhorn, Austria, to map snow depth and layers without snow pits.

Medusa Explorations mapped boulder clay up to ~4 m deep with a 300 MHz Zond Aero LF drone GPR in a protected Dutch reserve. Results matched ground GPR.

A MagNIMBUS drone survey in California wetlands found 22 of 25 abandoned gas wells and 7 old pipelines in four field days.

At an open-pit mine in Africa, Altomaxx used a SENSYS MagDrone R3 on a DJI M300 to detect buried ferrous debris, locating small steel targets at depths up to 3.5 m.

CNR IREA flew MagNIMBUS and MagArrow drone magnetometers over buried steel pipelines in Italy. Both found them, with a clear trade-off between the two.

UAA researchers flew a Laser Falcon, SkyHub and UgCS over abandoned wells in Alaska: leaks flagged in 9 of 10 field surveys. Peer-reviewed in 2026.

Acre Mexico tested the Falcon Plus and FluX Aero sensors with SkyHub, UgCS and DroneGIS near Juárez. The survey identified methane readings to guide targeted follow-up inspections.

MAYA-DMDA pairs thermal cameras with an SPH Engineering Laser Falcon methane system to find landfill hotspots and leaks early.

Antea Group and Aerial Intelligence mapped methane over 30+ ha of Dutch landfill: 24 flights, about 55,000 points, Laser Falcon, SkyHub and UgCS.

Big Sky Theory and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) tested the Falcon TDLAS methane sensor on an SPH Engineering integrated drone system.

Altomaxx flew a Medusa MS-350 gamma-ray spectrometer with SkyHub over a remote uranium deposit. The drone workflow exceeded helicopter survey resolution and revealed new anomalies.

University of Queensland used UgCS Circlegrammetry and grid missions for 8 weeks of repeat sorghum flights, detecting panicles at 0.85 mAP.

A UgCS terrain-following hyperspectral flight held 6.5 cm/px over a glacier, giving the reference that let Sentinel-2 map red snow algae, 2018–2024.

BC forest researchers used UgCS terrain following on a Mavic 2 Pro to map 30 one-hectare plots at 1.0–1.5 cm/px, matching ground volumes at 0.92.

Dalhousie University found UgCS Circlegrammetry cut flight time by 64% and processing time by 83%, with the same 1.38–1.53 cm accuracy.