System and method for determining directional and non-directional fluid wave and current measurements
AssigneeNortek Corporation
InventorsAtle Lohrmann, Torstein Kanstad Pedersen
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Abstract
A system for determining the directional properties of surface waves or internal waves of a fluid medium includes a sonar system having a plurality of transducers for generating respective, separate acoustic beams and receiving echoes from one or more range cells located substantially within the beams; and a computer program executed by a processor for determining the directional properties associated with the surface waves or internal waves from the received echoes, wherein the computer program determines along-beam velocities along the separate acoustic beams and combines the along-beam velocities to form an equivalent orbital velocity vector.
Claims28
A system for determining the directional properties of surface waves or internal waves of a fluid medium, comprising:
- a sonar system having a plurality of transducers for generating respective, separate acoustic beams and receiving echoes from one or more range cells located substantially within the beams, the plurality of transducers including an Acoustic Surface Tracking (AST) transducer for generating acoustic beams and receiving echoes for making AST measurements;
- a computer program executed by a processor for
- a) determining, based on the AST measurements, the distance from the system in the fluid medium to a free surface of the fluid medium and an ideal horizontal plane near the free surface of the fluid medium from which to determine the directional properties of surface waves or internal waves of the fluid medium;
- b) determining the directional properties associated with the surface waves or internal waves from the received echoes;
- c) determining along-beam velocities along the separate acoustic beams;
- and
- d) combining the along-beam velocities to form an equivalent orbital velocity vector at a central location over the AST transducer in the ideal horizontal plane determined by the AST measurements.
A method for determining the directional properties of surface waves or internal waves of a fluid medium with a sonar system, comprising:
- determining, based on Acoustic Surface Tracking (AST) measurements performed by an AST transducer of the sonar system, a distance from the sonar system in the fluid medium to a free surface of the fluid medium and an ideal horizontal plane near the free surface of the fluid medium from which to determine the directional properties of surface waves or internal waves of the fluid medium;
- generating respective, separate acoustic beams;
- receiving echoes from one or more range cells located substantially within the beams;
- measuring along-beam velocities along the separate acoustic beams;
- combining the measured along-beam velocities to form an equivalent orbital velocity vector for the surface waves or internal waves of the fluid medium at a central location over the AST transducer in the ideal horizontal plane determined by the AST measurements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.