Acoustic Doppler current profiler

An acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) is a hydroacoustic current meter similar to a sonar, attempting to measure water current velocities over a depth range using the Doppler effect of sound waves scattered back from particles within the water column. The term ADCP is a generic term for all acoustic current profilers although the abbreviation originates from an instrument series introduced by RD Instruments in the 1980s. The working frequencies range of ADCPs range from 38 kHz to several Megahertz.

ADCPs contain piezoelectric transducers to transmit and receive sound signals. The traveling time of sound waves gives an estimate of the distance. The frequency shift of the echo is proportional to the water velocity along the acoustic path. To measure 3D velocities, at least three beams are required. In rivers, only the 2D velocity is relevant and ADCPs typically have two beams. In recent years, more functionality has been added to ADCPs (notably wave and turbulence measurements) and systems can be found with 2,3,4,5 or even 9 beams. .

Further components of an ADCP are an electronic amplifier, a receiver, a clock to measure the traveling time, a temperature sensor, a compass to know the heading, and a pitch/roll sensor to know the orientation. An analog-to-digital converter and a digital signal processor are required to sample the returning signal in order to determine the Doppler shift. A temperature sensor is used to estimate the sound velocity at the instrument position using the seawater equation of state, and uses this to estimate scale the frequency shift to water velocities. This procedure assumes that the salinity has a preconfigured constant value. Finally, the results are saved to internal memory or output online to an external display software.

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