Abstract: Rivers are important to the balance of our environment and to human interests, including water, transportation, agriculture, and biodiversity, but they have increasing pressures from pollution, climate change, and rapid changes in depth that can affect swimmers, boaters, fishermen, and wildlife. The problem of floating waste including plastics, organic waste, and industrial run-off can cut down water quality, impact ecosystems, and cause devastation to the environment over the long-term. This project plans to address declining water quality using a River Depth Monitoring and Waste Collection Robot - which is an autonomous solution to improve the safety and cleanliness of rivers. The autonomous robot will use sonar-based sensors to monitor water levels continuously to identify rapid changes in depth, identify danger spots, and signal alerts to users or authorities. It will be equipped with a collection mechanism to pick up floating debris and halt contamination for the ecological and environmental health of the river. The updating data will be conveyed with GPS tracking using wireless transfer to the designated organisation, and is designed to function in a time-efficient manner. The robot leverages autonomous operation as scalable, cost-effective, and resilient, and can be operated with little to no personnel; benefitting municipalities, environmental groups, and emergency groups. By combining the elements of waste removal, depth levels and monitoring, this project can help to steward our rivers sustainably, assist in avoiding any danger to humans or wildlife, and enable environmental groups to attend to remediation efforts.

Keywords: River depth monitoring, autonomous robot, sonar sensors, waste collection, floating debris, water quality, pollution, GPS tracking, real-time data transmission, environmental safety, sustainable river management, aquatic ecosystem protection.

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2025.125339