LACROIX unveils SOFREL LevelUp, its new high-precision radar for water networks

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In a context of increasing climate pressure, monitoring water levels has become a strategic imperative for territorial resilience. LACROIX identifies three key pillars where real-time data is becoming critical:

• Securing access to the resource: in drinking water systems, continuous reservoir monitoring is a key safety mechanism that ensures supply continuity, anticipates consumption peaks, and helps prevent shortages. It is also a major driver of energy efficiency through the optimisation of pumping cycles.
• Managing environmental emergencies: in wastewater systems, radar-based monitoring makes the invisible visible by instantly detecting overloads, blockages, or inflow and infiltration (I&I). This responsiveness is essential to prevent urban flooding and to stop any pollutant discharge into the natural environment during intense rainfall events.
• Anticipating climate variability: for natural water bodies, the technology acts as a sentinel in the face of extreme conditions. It helps anticipate the severity of floods while also monitoring low-flow vulnerability, providing decision-makers with the data needed to adapt territories to climate shocks.

Radar vs ultrasonic: why radar is prevailing

For many years, ultrasonic sensors have dominated the level measurement market, valued for their ease of deployment. However, their accuracy is highly dependent on environmental conditions: temperature, humidity, the presence of vapour, or turbulence can significantly disrupt acoustic signal propagation.

Radar technology, now more compact and more accessible, overcomes these limitations with remarkable reliability. Unaffected by harsh atmospheric conditions (vapour saturation, condensation, turbulence), it ensures stable and accurate measurements regardless of the type of structure.

Radar’s advantages over ultrasonic technology:

• Insensitivity to variations in temperature, pressure, and humidity
• Measurement stability in saturated atmospheres and highly turbulent structures
• Higher accuracy and extended range, even in challenging environments
• Ability to equip sites previously inaccessible to ultrasonic sensors

Building on its recognised expertise with the LT-US ultrasonic sensor, LACROIX is now taking a new technological step with SOFREL LevelUp, marking the transition to a new era of more reliable and more robust measurement.

LevelUp: the benefits of a solution designed for field conditions

Designed to operate in combination with the SOFREL LogUp data logger, LevelUp provides a complete response to today’s challenges faced by network operators: infrastructure modernisation, equipment digitalisation, cybersecurity, and optimisation of field operations.

Simplified installation for rapid commissioning

LevelUp features an adjustable, orientable mounting system that enables precise sensor positioning even in structures with complex geometries. This design also facilitates on-site access for operators, a significant advantage under real-world operating conditions.

The sensor incorporates a highly precise adjustment mechanism — including a calibration ring and a laser alignment system — ensuring fast and reliable commissioning, with minimised risk of error.

Unified configuration via mobile application

Configuration has been fully redesigned around a single mobile application, enabling simultaneous setup and control of both SOFREL LogUp and LevelUp. This approach ensures consistent configuration settings, reduces the risk of errors, and guarantees data security in compliance with the RED directive, delivering significant time savings during on-site interventions.

It is part of a modern supervision approach: collected measurements are transmitted in real time to remote monitoring platforms, providing operators with continuous and immediate visibility of their networks. This represents a key lever for accelerating the modernisation of water infrastructure supervision.er essentiel pour accélérer la modernisation de la supervision des infrastructures d’eau.

« SOFREL LevelUp is much more than a new sensor: it is the result of a long-standing conviction that measurement reliability is the first link in network performance. By moving to radar technology, we are providing operators with unmatched precision and robustness, where field conditions are the most demanding. Combined with the SOFREL LogUp data logger and our mobile application, this sensor reflects our vision of instrumentation that is easy to deploy, secure, and fully aligned with the digitalisation challenges of water infrastructure. »

Guilhem Lemonnier
Product Manager for Instrumentation
LACROIX Environment, BU Smart Water & HVAC

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