Development of a Low-Cost, Open-Source Unmanned Surface Vehicle for Water System Monitoring

Commercially available unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in the market are expensive, and the software used for automating navigation and bathymetry mapping are typically proprietary. Large-scale collection of water quantity and quality data requires dynamic in situ sensing approaches with open-source software for user flexibility. This manuscript presents an open-source, economic, and efficient USV platform for in situ depth sensing to perform hydrographic surveys in freshwater bodies with capabilities to explore inaccessible shallow regions by humans. The USV components cost less than $3,000. The application of the USV for a bathymetric survey was performed at Horse Creek Cove at Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees. These results find that an estimated 43,000 m3 of sediment accumulated in this cove over a time span of eleven years between a 2009 manual survey and our 2020 analysis with the USV. This USV platform provides an advantageous method for widescale adoption and use manual methods of mapping of bathymetry and potentially other water quality parameters.