Balloons, as imagined by BWI, are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) specifically designed to monitor the water quality of lakes, dams, ponds, and rivers of sub-basins (via tethered atmospheric balloons) or of watersheds at the country scale and cross-border river basins (via stratospheric geostationary balloons, availability in 2027).
The platform comes pre-equipped with optical and thermal payloads with communication means allowing the transmission of images to the ground segment, which is responsible for applying the necessary algorithmic processing to produce detection services selected for monitoring the quality of your inland water bodies.
Tethered atmospheric balloons designed for water quality monitoring can be easily maneuvered by a trained technician, called an aeronaut (or aérostier as in French).
Data collection by the payloads takes place below the airspace determined by civil aviation authorities, making them agile sensors in their deployment.
Water quality monitoring tethered atmospheric balloons are easily movable from one point of interest to another, as they can be towed on a trailer (provided by BWI upon delivery of the balloon). Water quality monitoring tethered atmospheric balloons are adapted to being moved along small watersheds or several sub-basins close to one another.
Geostationary stratospheric balloons are currently part of an R&D program and will be fully operational in 2027. However, geostationary stratospheric balloons are already available for preorder.
Stratospheric geostationary HAPS are quasi-space vectors capable of covering the monitoring of water quality over a large geographical area at a significantly lower cost than satellites.
Stratospheric balloons are capable of remaining in geostationary orbit above a country or above a large cross-border river basin by intelligently exploiting stratospheric wind currents, which blow in different directions at various altitudes.
Integrate water quality data as well as services such as temperature, color, suspended matters, algae, chlorophyl-A or turbidity, to your existing early-warning systems in an as streamlined as possible manner thanks to our well-documented API with in-built examples.
Access the latest real-time optical and thermal rasters, as generated in a remote sensing fashion by the payloads located on the balloons, via a highly available API.
The locations of your water quality monitoring virtual stations are kept safe and confidential, while adhering to the best software security practices.
Create your account online, select your plan and start drawing value from your BWI tethered atmospheric balloon or geostationary stratospheric balloon in a matter of minutes.
Tailor the coverage of the BWI inland water quality monitoring balloon mission to suit your needs, over time.
Your named customer success manager at BWI is always here to pick up the phone and answer your questions.
BWI specializes in the forecasting of inland surface water reserves around the globe. BWI brings together in-situ data, spaceborne observations, and machine learning to feed and empower hydrological and hydrodynamical models. A provider of online subscription-based virtual continental freshwater monitoring stations, BWI aims to make scalable – across space and time – hydrological software to address climate change-induced water stress. The payloads mounted on the water quality monitoring balloons as designed by BWI, combined with the AI-powered processing capabilities of BWI’s mission center on the ground, enable for remotely sensing turbidity, chlorophyll-A, suspended matters, algae, and cyanobacteria of the remotely sensed water bodies.
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