Turbulence Measurements from Moving Platforms

Two recent methods for making high-fidelity turbulence measurements from moving platforms are described and demonstrated. The first is a method for measuring profiles of near-surface turbulence from a wave-following 'SWIFT' buoy. The second is a method for measuring time series of turbulence from a submerged compliant mooring. Both approaches use coherent Doppler instruments and inertial motion units (IMUs). In the buoy method, wave motions (e.g., pitch, roll, and heave) are quantified via GPS and IMU measurements. These wave motions are not present in the turbulence observations, because buoy follows the wave orbital motion, and thus the turbulent velocities are processed in the wave-following reference frame. In the mooring method, IMU measurements track the mooring motions (e.g., strum and kiting) and these motions are removed in post-processing to obtain turbulent velocities in the fixed earth reference frame. These approaches successfully quantify turbulence in regions previously unavailable or limited by the noise and spatial aliasing of sampling from bottom-mounted platforms.