Sources of Measurement Variance in Broadband Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers

An Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) provides velocity estimates of water currents. These estimates have an inherent uncertainty, or variance. The use of broadband signal transmission and processing can significantly lower this variance. In practice, it is important to have a predictive measure of the measurement variance in order to properly interpret the resultant data. In broadband processing there are a number of different factors affecting the final measurement variance; this paper provides an overview of these factors and the system parameters that can be adjusted to influence them.