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 estuary and coastal environments where wave and mooring 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 a numeric model and laboratory testing of an acoustic current meter and includes a discussion of model predicted vs. laboratory dynamic test results.