This application describes a method, system, and apparatus for measuring the depth of a body of water ahead of the user's location or position. The user can be a driver of a vehicle. The apparatus includes a fording depth sensor, a second fording depth sensor, a proximity sensor to determine road angle or position ahead of the vehicle, wherein the proximity sensor is designed to operate underneath the water surface and a control unit configured to use signals of the wading depth and sensors to compute a wading depth at a location ahead of the direction of vehicle movement and/or to compute a distance ahead of the direction of vehicle movement to maximum wading depth. A method of building the apparatus, system, and vehicle is also provided.

A marine electronic device is provided including a user interface, a processor, and a memory having computer program code stored thereon. The memory and the computer program code are configured to, with the processor, cause the marine electronic device to receive a first user input defining a minimum water depth value for a route on a body of water, receive a second user input defining a maximum water depth value for the route, cause a chart to be displayed on the user interface, receive a third user input directed to the chart defining an ending point, and generate a continuous route from a starting location to an ending location corresponding to the ending point based on the maximum water depth value and the minimum water depth value.

An apparatus and a method are provided for detecting one or more objects under a surface of a water body. The method includes transmitting one or more ultrasonic waves into the water body according to a transmit beam pattern. The method further includes determining a bottom characteristic of a bottom of the water body and dynamically adjusting the transmit beam pattern, based on the bottom characteristic of the water body.

An adaptive filtering method of photon counting Lidar for bathymetry is provided in this invention, which includes steps: step S1: adaptively acquiring parameters of elliptic filtering for water surface photon signals; step S2: determining a relationship between filter parameters and elevation of underwater photon signals, and obtaining parameters of the elliptic filtering for photon signal in water column; and step S3: filtering and fitting the water surface photon signals and the underwater photon signals to acquire continuous bathymetry results.

The invention relates to a method of generating 3D data of an object, in particular for the generation of underwater maps. This method comprises the following steps: provision of two-dimensional image data of the surface of the object, such as e.g. the bottom of a body of water, together with reference information provision of a three-dimensional relief map of a predetermined area of the object or of the bottom of a body of water, and mapping of the two-dimensional image data as texture on the three-dimensional relief map by means of the reference information.

A geomorphological structure monitoring system is disclosed, which comprises a supporting base having an accommodating space and a plurality of through holes, and at least a portion of the supporting base is embedded under a ground; a plurality of sensing devices arranged in the accommodating space vertically and embedded under the ground, the sensing devices may generate a sensing signal when the sensing devices are exposed from the ground due to the structural change of the ground; a signal processing device receiving and processing the sensing signal; and a transmission device connecting the sensing devices in series and the signal processing device.

A device and methods of placing the device for indicating tidal water depth is described. The device having a body in a vertical orientation, with a top, bottom, and at least one viewing surface, with a measurement scale of numerals and marks displayed on the at least one viewing surface, where the numerals increase in value in a direction from the bottom towards the top of the body.

This disclosure is generally directed to systems and methods for detecting a water depth level using capacitive sensors. The systems and methods disclosed herein receive a first capacitive signal from a first capacitive sensor in a wheel well of an autonomous vehicle (AV) and determine that the first capacitive signal exceeds a threshold value. The AV controller may be configured to determine water levels using a capacitive sensor system, and perform mitigating actions that cause the vehicle to either clean soiled capacitive sensors, or move the vehicle to a location that mitigates the risk of vehicle damage. Other mitigating actions may be performed as well, including disabling or powering down critical vehicle components when the vehicle cannot be moved to another location, providing means for emergency vehicle exit, and sending warning messages to the fleet control server, to occupants of the AV, or to other emergency personnel.

A road surface water depth calculation device includes: an acquisition unit configured to acquire flooding locations at which a vehicle travels and water depth candidates of the flooding locations; an extraction unit configured to extract a plurality of continuous flooding locations from the acquired flooding locations; an altitude acquisition unit configured to acquire altitudes of the extracted flooding locations; an estimation unit configured to calculate a sum of the water depth candidate and the altitude, acquired by the altitude acquisition unit, of each of the extracted flooding locations, and estimate the sum as a water surface altitude which is an altitude of a water surface of each of the extracted flooding locations; and a calculation unit configured to calculate a water depth of the extracted flooding location based on the water surface altitude and the altitude, acquired by the altitude acquisition unit, of each of the extracted flooding locations.

Aspects of the invention may be related to a computer system and a computerized method of controlling a marine vessel. Embodiments may include: receiving, by a controller, a position of the marine vessel from a positioning system; receiving, by the controller, geographical data, from at least one database, the geographical data may include at least a map of seabed depths; receiving, by the controller, a heading direction and speed of the marine vessel; calculating, by the controller, a safety zone ahead of the marine vessel based on the position, the heading direction and the speed of the marine vessel; identifying a location of a critical seabed depth inside the safety zone based on the received, the geographical data; and changing, by the controller, a state of a propelling unit of the marine vessel when a critical seabed depth was identified inside the safety zone.