ADCP single-ping data

Matlab requirements

You must have UH Currents group matlab code installed and the matlab path configured. Read the relevant parts of this page to find the and download the matlab code ("matlab.zip"), and set up the path.

Reading raw data

Programs exist to read raw data from data files collected by various logging programs, sometimes more than one program can log data for a given instrument. The binary data format differs between instruments; the filenames vary between logging programs. The "class" (below) indicates the class of instrument (specifically the kind of binary data stored). There is one read program for each class of instruments: specifying the instrument class is necessary during the read process so matlab will know which "read" program to run. These read programs only work with instruments that have 4 beams (regardless of how many are working):

class   instrument   self-contained    underway
          name         (lowered,         (requires a  data
                        moored)         acquisition program)
-----   ----------   ----------     ------------------------------
  bb     bb adcp         yes         yes: VmDAS  (ENR, ENS, ENX, STA, LTA
                                     yes: Transect (*.r files only)
  bb     workhorse       yes         yes: VmDAS  (ENR, ENS, ENX, STA, LTA
  os   ocean surveyor    NA          yes: VmDAS  (ENR, ENS, ENX, STA, LTA
                                          UHDAS    (*.raw)
  hr     HDSS            NA          yes: HDSS     (ugly file name)
 son    Sontek           yes         NA

The "read" function returns a data structure with fields present for each beam in a three-dimensional array. Type "help nb/read", "help bb/read", (etc) to see the options for the program. In addition to required options (instrument class, file name, and yearbase) you can specify the data variables to output (eg. vel is velocity, ts is time series (heading, temperature,…)) and the indices to extract. Note that not all fields are available in all data sets.

There are two types of single-ping data:

NOTE that the data collected may be in earth or beam coordinates, depending on the way the instrument was set up. Fully navigated shiboard data are in earth coordinatees.

Data present in the table above have the following fields:

"RAW" (from the
 instrument)        lon  coord      time        pings per   heading
                    lat  system     base        ensemble    (pitch,roll)
------------------+-----+---------+-----------+-----------+-------------
moored or lowered    no   note(1)  instrument   note(1)     internal sensor
shipboard:
'raw'
    VmDAS ENR        no   beam     instrument      1          see note(2)
    UHDAS raw        no   beam     instrument      1          see note(2)
shipboard:
partially
navigated
    VmDAS ENS       yes   beam       UTC           1          see note(2)
shipboard:
fully
navigated
    VmDAS ENX       yes   earth      UTC           1          as specified
    VmDAS STA       yes   earth      UTC        note(2)       as specified
    VmDAS LTA       yes   earth      UTC        note(2)       as specified
UHDAS raw       yes   earth      UTC           1          as specified
                                                          (see note(3))
HDSS  uglyname  yes   earth      UTC           1          as specified
                                                         (see note(4))

NOTES:

(1) Moored or lowered are usually collected in earthcoordinates, but the transformation matrices are available in this suite of programs to switch from beam to earth coordinates given heading.

(2) Raw RDI (un-navigated) shipboard ADCP data will only have a heading if it is put into the deck unit using the synchro input. You cannot assume this is being used: heading usually comes in a serial input and is not available until the "fully navigated" stage.

(3) UHDAS raw data files are un-navigated, and are stored along with the raw serial inputs (gzipped files with GGA messages, etc). Two steps are needed to create ancillary navigation files, at which point a simple tool (in this sofware suite) can be used to attach the navigation UTC time, and attitude to the UHDAS files.

(4) HDSS data routines are experimental: newly written, and unsupported. HDSS files are fully navigated, but badly documented. If you must deal with HDSS files, check the "HDSS blog" (currents.soest.hawaii.edu) for more information, caveats, warnings, pitfalls, and experience. It will probably be painful.

Working with binary ADCP data files:

You must run "adcppath" and then "radcppath" to have access to the programs that read raw data from RDI instruments

Examples:

(1a) UHDAS Ocean surveyor — Read all variables, first 300 values

(1b) UHDAS Ocean surveyor

(1c) UHDAS Ocean Surveyor

(1d) UHDAS Ocean surveyor

(2a) VmDAS data (this scheme works for all VmDAS data files)

-------------------------
>> filename = 'KMADCP093_000000.LTA';  % this is fully navigated, averaged data
>> osdata = read(os, filename, 'vars', 'all');
-------------------------

(2b) VmDAS data — concatenating files:

-------------------------
>> filename1 = 'KMADCP093_000000.LTA';
>> filename2 = 'KMADCP093_000001.LTA';
>> filename3 = 'KMADCP093_000002.LTA';
>> osdata1 = read(os, filename1, 'vars', 'all');
>> osdata2 = read(os, filename2, 'vars', 'all');
>> osdata = catadcp(osdata1, osdata2);
>> osdata = catadcp(osdata, read(os, filename3, 'vars', 'all');
>> dd = restruct(os, osdata); % make the variables 2-dimensional; add some
-------------------------

(3) HDSS data (see HDSS blog for caveats).

transforming the data into earth coordinates

To get raw data with U, V, W, and error velocity you need to transform the velocities from beam coordinates to earth coordinates. For this, you must know the angle of the transducer relative to the hull. This usually comes as a rough guess of the angle, which is used during aquisition, and a calibration value, which is determined after processing. In this example, the heading offset used during aquisition was 45deg, and the "phase" from earlier codas calibrations was 0.55deg. The geometry varies with the instrument, but is usually convex for the OS and concave for NB and BB instruments.

-------------------------
OH = 45.0 + .55;  %Mounting Angle +  phase
hdg = data.heading;
[data.enu data.xyze] = beam_enu(data.vel, OH + hdg, 0*hdg, 0*hdg', ...
               'geometry','convex');
-------------------------

Using raw data

Sometimes if is nice to have all four beams available without having to type squeeze. The function "restruct" returns variables starting as [NBINS x NBEAMS x NPROFS] in four separate variables, each [NBINS x NPROFS]. Restruct requires the instrument class as the first argument. (The optional output structure config holds title information used for plotting)

-------------------------
[dd, config] = restruct(bb, data);  % "config" is used for plotting; see below
eg:        data.vel:           [50x4x50 double]    (from original read)
turns into
           dd.vel1:          [50x50 double]        (after restruct)
           dd.vel2:          [50x50 double]
           dd.vel3:          [50x50 double]
           dd.vel4:          [50x50 double]
-------------------------

"restruct" is most useful with fully navigated data. From Example (1b) above:

------------------------------------------
dd=                               (same as original "data", plus some)
          dday: [1x1200 double]    original instrument decimal day
     ens_num: [1x1200 double]      profile number
cor1: [80x1200 double]  \  correlation, beam 1 (for a NB, the
cor2: [80x1200 double]   \ correlation, beam 2     field would be
cor3: [80x1200 double]   / correlation, beam 3     "spectral width"
cor4: [80x1200 double]  /  correlation, beam 4     not correlation
amp1: [80x1200 double]  \  signal/noise, beam 1
amp2: [80x1200 double]   \ signal/noise, beam 2
amp3: [80x1200 double]   / signal/noise, beam 3
amp4: [80x1200 double]  /  signal/noise, beam 4
pg1: [80x1200 double]  \  flag: 0 or 1, beam 1
pg2: [80x1200 double]   \ flag: 0 or 1, beam 2
pg3: [80x1200 double]   / flag: 0 or 1, beam 3
pg4: [80x1200 double]  /  flag: 0 or 1, beam 4
vel1: [80x1200 double]   \ if ORIGINALLY beam coords, these are
vel2: [80x1200 double]       measured velocities for the 4 beams
vel3: [80x1200 double]     if ORIGINALLY in earth coords, (eg. LTA)
vel4: [80x1200 double]   /   meas vel in [east, north , up, errvel]
xyze1: [80x1200 double]  \  measured velocities in ship coords:
xyze2: [80x1200 double]   \     starboard, forward, up, errvel
xyze3: [80x1200 double]   /
xyze4: [80x1200 double]  /
enu1: [80x1200 double]  \  measured velocoties in earth coordinates
enu2: [80x1200 double]   \    east,north,up,errvel
enu3: [80x1200 double]   /
enu4: [80x1200 double]  /
uship: [1x1200 double]      ship's speed from navigation
vship: [1x1200 double]             uses 'll2mps'
umeas: [80x1200 double]  \  same as enu1:   m/s
vmeas: [80x1200 double]   \ same as enu2:   m/s
wmeas: [80x1200 double]   / same as enu3:   m/s
emeas: [80x1200 double]  /  same as enu4:   m/s
fmeas: [80x1200 double]     measured velocity aligned with ship heading
pmeas: [80x1200 double]     measured velocity aligned with port dir
  corr_dday: [1x1200 double]  --> UTC time
    heading: [1x1200 double]      heading from some source (depends on   )
      pitch: [1x1200 double]      pitch from some source   (data type and)
       roll: [1x1200 double]      roll from some source    (acquisition  )
temperature: [1x1200 double]      temperature from thermistor
 soundspeed: [1x1200 double]      soundspeed used (instrument-dependent)
        nav: [1x1 struct]         navigation structure, UTC time, lon, lat
        mps: [1x1200 double]      ship speed (from ll2mps)
        cog: [1x1200 double]      course over ground
        lon: [1x1200 double]      lon from source
        lat: [1x1200 double]      lat from source
       uabs: [80x1200 double]     ocean u: umeas + uship (no corrections!!)
       vabs: [80x1200 double]     ocean v: vmeas + vship (no corrections!!)
       fabs: [80x1200 double]     ocean vel in direction of ship's heading
         bt: [1x1 struct]         bottom track data
       bins: [80x1 double]        bin count (positive away from instrument)
      depth: [80x1 double]        nominal depth (meters) away from instr
     config: [1x1 struct]         FULL OF USEFUL INFO, eg: bin, pulse...
------------------------------------------

Plotting raw data

After you load the data and restructure it, you can plot any 2-dimensional parameter with "aplotit", for example:

----------------------
aplotit(data,config,'fn','amp1');

or

aplotit(data,config,'fn','amp1','cur_ax', subplot(211));
aplotit(data,config,'fn','cor1','cur_ax', subplot(212));
----------------------