Laboratory verification of an acoustic current meter error model

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has, as part of its mission, the measurement of currents in estuarine and coastal environments where wave dynamics contaminate the steady flow signal. The Engineering Support Office (ESO) of NOAA qualifies many of these measurements through extensive laboratory evaluations, calibrations, field testing, and modeling. This paper presents a description of the numeric modeling and laboratory testing of an acoustic current meter, the Neil Brown Instrument Systems Acoustic Current Meter (NBIS-ACM-2), and also includes a discussion of model predicted versus laboratory dynamic test results.