Portable Ultrasonic Trench Logger For Optical Fibre Cable

The Portable Ultrasonic Trench Logger operates by synchronizing distance measurements with geographic coordinates to document optical fibre cable depths. At the core of the system is an Arduino Uno R3, which acts as the central processing unit coordinating data acquisition from multiple peripherals. When the user presses a tactile switch, the system initiates a logging cycle. The HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor transmits high-frequency sound waves and measures the echo return time to calculate the precise distance from the sensor head down to the bottom of the trench. Simultaneously, the NEO-6M GPS module acquires satellite data, parsing NMEA sentences to extract exact latitude, longitude, and elevation coordinates. Once both the distance and location data are captured, the Arduino compiles them into a data record and writes it to a text file on a Micro SD card via the SPI communication protocol for permanent storage. During this process, the I2C 16x2 LCD display provides real-time visual feedback to the user, showing the measured depth and GPS status, while a 5V active buzzer emits an audible confirmation tone to indicate a successful write operation. The entire assembly is powered independently by a 5V USB power bank, making the measurement tool fully portable for field deployments.