Correction of Teledyne Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) Bottom-Track Range Measurements for Instrument Pitch and Roll

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to correct Teledyne ADCP Bottom-Track Range measurements by accounting for instrument pitch and roll, improving the accuracy of distance estimations in upward-looking deployments.

Contribution

It introduces post-processing corrections for ADCP Bottom-Track data to incorporate pitch and roll effects, which are not considered in standard software processing.

Findings

Enhanced accuracy of bottom distance measurements

Improved data reliability in upward-looking ADCP deployments

Guidelines for post-deployment correction procedures

Abstract

The Workhorse Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) manufactured by Teledyne RD Instruments (RDI) uses a "Bottom-Tracking" algorithm to yield data intended to represent distance to the bottom. However, current RDI software processing does not take into account the pitch and roll of the instrument. This technical note outlines post-deployment computations required to correct the reported Bottom-Track Ranges for instrument pitch and roll in the scenario where the ADCP is upward-looking with Bottom-Tracking being used to estimate distance to the surface.