Thurn Group

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Complete Solutions for Water Sensing Challenges

Thurn are experts in developing and adapting water sensors and measuring technologies for rapid deployment in challenging and hard-to-reach aquatic locations; working in freshwater lakes, rivers and waterways as well as coastal, near-shore and marine environments. We specialise in delivering fully integrated Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs / aerial drones), small platform remote and autonomous Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs / robotic boats), and distributed remote sensor systems with AI data analysis.

Beyond supplying water sensing and survey equipment, we are innovators and problem solvers who develop new technologies which push the boundaries of what’s possible to measure and analyse in and around water. We contribute to research and innovation projects in the UK and Europe as well as being technology partners to organisations across all sectors. We are actively working on several cutting-edge systems for delivering unprecedented insight into aquatic environments.

Thurn Integrated Survey Systems for Water

Thurn are the UK’s leading experts at building and supplying complete remote and autonomous survey vehicles for marine and inland water based surveying. We work with our customers to develop new, bespoke system integrations to solve their unique challenges.

We integrate a complete range of sensors onto UAVs (aerial drones) and USVs (remote and autonomous boats) including: sidescan and multi-beam sonar for bathymetry and imaging; ADCPs, SVR and other sensors for measuring water flow and discharge; water sampling kits and water quality sensors; magnetometers, ground and water penetrating radars, ultrasonic and radar altimeters; and more...

Systems are supplied with all the control hardware and software required to run preprogrammed or autonomous survey missions to record, transmit and analyse sensor data. This includes precise positioning data with RTK and PPK corrections utilising GNSS / GPS and INS (IMU, AHRS etc.) sensors to maximise accuracy and resolution.

Combining decades of experience working on sonar and radar technology with in-depth knowledge of the methodology involved in gathering and processing survey data, and partnerships with some of the leading players in the market for uncrewed vehicles and associated peripherals, Thurn are uniquely placed to advise on, supply and support a full package of equipment for any conceivable water-based measurement, data collection and analysis task.

Example Integrated Systems

Projects

Thurn operate on the forefront technological development in the water based sensing and surveying fields, working with a range of partners including businesses, scientists, institutions and government bodies to create brand new tools and systems combining the latest equipment with bespoke software and powerful AI for broad aquatic survey applications.

We have experience both running and contributing towards various research and innovation projects in the UK and Europe. We are successful bid writers and project coordinators and have been involved in several consortia working on developing some of the most exciting emerging technologies for revealing unprecedented detail in and around water.

We are always interested in getting involved in new projects and looking for partners to collaborate with on the proposals we create. Please get in touch if there’s a particular project you have in mind or if you are interested in the technologies we’re working with.

See our latest projects

New Technologies

Thurn are actively working on the development of several exciting new technologies to provide unparalleled insight into the aquatic world. While it’s too early to publish full details while trials and design iterations are ongoing, we are happy to share an overview of the systems we’re creating:

Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring Systems with cloud-based AI analysis. Ultra high-fidelity hydrophones in long-term freshwater deployment providing data streams to cloud-based, centralised servers where AI analysis reveals unprecedented detail about ecosystem health and change over time. Based on our hydrophone technology.

Enhanced Surface Velocity Radar. Utilising our patent-pending SVR system, we have created a process for eliminating noise to allow highly accurate measurement of water surface speeds down to very low flow rates. These sensors can be deployed in meshed clusters to monitor entire catchments or a range of assets across multiple locations with a cloud based dashboard showing near-real-time data. See our SVR systems.

UAV (aerial drone) borne Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs). We are adapting a popular light-weight ADCP system to be deployed from a drone allowing analysis of water movement in previously difficult or impossible to access locations including floodplains and fast flowing water.