Hello Everyone,
I hope you all are doing well,
As we know that the Arduino board can be used to log data from Ping Sonar Altimeter and Echosounder sensor I just wanted to know what is the format of the data that is getting stored.
Also how can I geo-tag the data of the sensor.
And anybody has used this sensor on a drone for bathymetric survey.
Hi @Parshu0798, welcome to the forum 
If you’re using an Arduino to communicate with a Ping Sonar then any data recording you do will be from your own code, so the format will be whatever you decide on.
If you choose to store full profile response data in this binary format then they can be visually replayed using our Ping Viewer software, but if that’s not relevant or important to your use case then you can choose whatever format is convenient.
If you have positioning data available then you can just record the current/latest position estimate at the time of each sonar response. It is possible to be more precise if it’s very important, but that’s usually sufficient.
Note that if your vehicle is running an ArduPilot autopilot firmware on its flight controller board then it can communicate with the ping sonar directly, and just record the distance estimates (and its position estimates, if it has relevant sensors) as part of its DataFlash logs, which you can then extract/export into more accessible file formats using the available log processing and exploration tools.
What kind of drone are you talking about? The Ping Sonar is regularly used for bathymetric surveys with our BlueBoat, and has likely been used for at least some with the BlueROV2, but if you’re considering an aerial drone then it’s very unlikely someone has used one, since the air-water boundary reflects most of the signal, and the estimated distances would be to the water surface rather than measuring its depth.
Hi @EliotBR thank you for warm welcome and i really appreciate your response, yes i am referring to an air borne drone.
Yes, I understand that most of the signals will reflect from the surface of the river, but I am going to try to keep the sensor dipped under water for the whole flight will this work for measuring the depth of the river.
I am going to use CSV format to save the data (GPS data from the on board GPS from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Depth data from the sonar and use them for generating the underwater riverbed) like the one done in this video using QGIS software (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGDr3BrmmNw) and similarly as this documentation for reef master suggests (ReefMaster — Rover documentation).
See i haven’t used any of the echosounder sensor earlier I am just curious to know if i do so using it from an Aerial drone and dipping the sensor into the water can I log the sufficient data into the Arduino board.
I expect the added drag and weight from a sonar in the water would substantially reduce the already limited flight durations of a drone, and the sonar itself may be challenging to keep oriented straight into the water (as opposed to bouncing around at different angles, or repeatedly bouncing off the surface).
Beyond that, is there a reason to have an Arduino on your drone as well? As mentioned if you’re using an ArduPilot autopilot firmware you can likely connect the sensor directly to your flight controller, and have it log the data automatically (with position data synchronised without additional communication delay).
Worth noting that this approach has been accomplished with a Surveyor Multibeam!
For the endurance I have already did my calculation with extra weight apart from the sensor and the hanging mechanism so I don’t feel that the endurance would be any problem to deal with.
Yes, there is a reason to have the Arduino on the drone as well because I am afraid that Ardupilot supports echosounder sensors only for boats and not for copter (Sonars — Copter documentation) so i need an Arduino to log the data from the sensor.
@tony-white Yes, but the solution from the SPH engineering is expensive as well.