RDI StreamPro ADCP

General StreamPro Notes

• Discussion below is for STreampro (new model w/ compass) and Novatel RTK base/rover GPS setup.

• On the ADCP sensor always point Beam 3 45 degrees from forwards. The beams are labeled near the bottom (sensor part) of the unit but on the cylindrical face. On the new streampro there is an arrow indicating the forward direction and there are grooves on the sides of the transducer to lock it into the trimaran in the proper position.

• The transducer should be mounted so that it is submerged 3 to 6 cm below the water surface

• Maximum depth is 5-6 meters. If you have water deeper than 5 m, you will have to use the River Cat or the Rio Grande or the S5.

• Energy Usage. The manual gives the following breakdown for Streampro ADCP run times and battery type:

 **General Alkaline AA -- 7.5 hours
 **Nickel-Metal Hydride Rechargeable AA -- 12.75 hours
 **Lithium nonRechargeable AA -- 21 hours

But, these numbers will probably be less for us by some amount since we'll be using the batteries near freezing where they have a bit less capacity. Bring spare batteries.

• We recommend to use WINRIVER II with the Streampro, not the IPAQ, so you can monitor the data collected. It is much easier to use a laptop and Winriver II than the IPAQ.

• Be careful with the transducer part of the operation. The Urethane face is sensitive to scratching and extreme temperature (coefficient of thermal expansion for the urethane). Also, remove the batteries after operation so they don't corrode in the battery housing.

• Always exit streampro on the IPAQ and/or Winriver on the laptop and disconnect the bluetooth before powering down the StreamPro ADCP.

General Notes from Hydroacoustics: In regards to IPAQ specs:

"We tested the Bluetooth range and it has a maximum ( 300 ft ) line of sight. The iPAQ power MUST be above 60% for Bluetooth to operate properly so always use an invertor or double AA battery aux powerpack. The SD card should be cleared off daily or it will affect memory causing comm failures and iPAQ lock ups."

Winriver II instructions:

Winriver is a better tool than the IPAQ because you can observe what is happening during the measurement (check for bad bins %, bad ensembles, lost ensembles, etc.). You can examine the ship track to see if there is a moving bed. You can easily view the velocity profile with depth and over time. If you click on the link above for Winriver, more detailed instructions are available that apply to both Streampro and Rio Grande. Here are the general instructions for use with the STreampro:

1) You must use a laptop with blue tooth capabilities. On the minitoughbook, if you are going to use the internal bluetooth make sure the wireless switch is turned to the "on" position (left hand side of the computer) and the bluetooth (from the taskbar lightening icon on bottom right corner of screen) is checked to bluetooth ON. I recommend not using the internal bluetooth and use the Sena USB external bluetooth w/ a good antennae. In this case you would not have to turn the wireless switch on.

2) Powering up: Press the power button on the StreamPro ADCP.

3) Set up bluetooth: Go to the Bluetooth Manager (in the taskbar) and open up the Bluetooth Settings. Right click on the RDI SPRO 00597 (old) or RDI SPRO 1180(new?) button and click connect. (Note, if you lose connections during the measurement, check here to reconnect and then restart with a new measurement). If you are using GPS w/ bluetooth, you can also connect to your GPS bluetooth Parani SD1000 radio here -- make sure it is turned on and the antennae is hooked up (and GPS has a battery hooked up).

4) Open up Winriver II and first configure the peripherals

• ADCP - and configure the com port and buad rate that the bluetooth uses for the streampro. Often it is COM40. Always use 115.2 K for the streampro baud rate.
• GPS - if using GPS you need to specify the bluetooth COM port for GPS. Baud rate is 38.4K.
• You should test the port to make sure winriver can communicate with the ADCP and GPS. If you get a blank screen communications are not working properly. Check to see if you are getting a "5" (RTK) or a "9" (WAAS) in the GPS NMEA output strings. This number is located right after the W (for longitude west).

5) WinRiver II set up:

a) Select File --> New Measurement.

b) Enter in the Station data (include the date of measurement in the station name) and click next

c) Enter in any Rating information and click next

d) in the configuration of devices, Winriver II will attempt to talk to the StreamPro ADCP and should automatically detect it (wait a few seconds)

e) in configuration, If using GPS, check the associated buttons.

f) in the Offsets, enter in the transducer depth (m), this is the distance from the transducer bottom to the water surface. Note that you should align the transducer heads in line with the bottom of the float w/ beam 3 forward and to a 45 degree offset. This is very important if you are using GPS

g) enter the magnetic variation at your location (needed for compass).

h) Use the default cell size and number of cells if possible, and then enter the max water depth and velocity. The max boat speed should always be equal to or less than the water velocity when making the measurement. The maximum water depth is 5-6 meters w/ Streampro. Note, try to estimate the max depth as best as you can. If you estimate the max depth to be greater than it really is, your cell sizes could be too large and you will not be able to measure as well in shallow water. If you estimate the max depth to be too shallow, you will not be able to measure the deeper water.

i) enter the water mode 12. We always use mode 12 unless you have very very slow moving water, then you can use mode 13.

j) in the recording section, write down the file name prefix, which should be the Station Name and Location and the date of msmst: Example: KadleroshilikR_pipeline_060609

Also check the "Long (YY-MM-DD hhmmss)" in the Use Date/Time in Filename section.

6) Next step is to conduct the following required QA/QC tests:

a) Set ADCP clock

b) Conduct the ADCP test (diagnostic test). Write down in your notes if any of the 6 tests fail and if they do, try again. Test should be conducted in non-moving water.

c) Conduct a compass calibration if the instrument has a compass (the streampro will have a compass as of May 1, 2010). Compass calibration and evaluation should be less than 2 degrees, and better yet, less than 1 degree. If not, try again, and keep trying until less than 2 degrees. This can be a challenge, and may need to be repeated multiple times until you can get it. You will rotate 2 times. Use the Homan style of rotation (move slowly to a green bar and then stop and hold for 5 seconds + and then move slowly again to the green bar and then stop and hold again, repeat until finished w/ rotation 1 and then do it again for rotation 2). Supposedly it works well every time.

d) Conduct a moving bed test. REQUIRED if there is no compass/GPS. It is good practice to do this for every measurement so you can correct the data for a moving bed (moving bed materials also include very fine sediments and organic materials) or if your GPS data is screwed up and you have to fall back on bottom tracking. It is best to do a loop test (i.e go across the river and then come back to the exact same location where you started). Otherwise you can due a minimum of 3 stationary moving bed tests across the river. It will appear as if the boat has moved upstream. Stationary test for 10 minutes (5 minutes if anchored or tethered). If you have a moving bed, it will appear as if the boat is moving upstream. Use the USGS LC or SMBA test to correct.

7) You are ready to begin the measurement and so press F4 Start Pinging. Make sure you have two depth cells (or two good bins) before you start the measurement.

8) Press F5 or Start Transect. Measure the distance from the bank to the starting location where you have 2 good bins with a laser rangefinder. Inside this area, the discharge will will be estimated by the software. Make a note of the channel geometry for these purposes. Wait for 10 ensembles, then proceed slowly across the river.

Four transects are required and must be within 5% of the mean discharge. If you cannot make the 5%, continue to do additional transects. It may be necessary to do your transect diagonally downstream if the velocities are very fast. The key making a measurement is to move the boat slowly! Boat velocity should always be less than the water velocity.

9) At the stopping location (where there are still 2 good bins) hold the boat position for 10 ensembles w/ 2 good bins. To stop the transect press F5 again or Stop Transect. Measure the distance from the ADCP to the bank and enter it in the computer. This distance is needed to estimate the discharge in the unmeasured areas (the left and right edges). Then begin the next transect by pressing F5/Start Transect.

10) Press F12 to see the discharge measurement summary

11) Note: You may see some noisy velocity data with a ton of bad bins % when using the Streampro (like more than 50%). It is typical to see up to 25% bad bins but higher might indicate there is a problem. This could be because the thresholds are set incorrectly in WINRIVER. If you are using version Winriver II 2.07, the thresholds should be okay. If not, these are the USGS recommended winriver thresholds for Streampro (5/30/2008): BT error velocity 0.100584 m/s, BT Up Velocity: 0.3048 m/s, WT Up Velocity: Max water speed, WT Error Velocity for Mode 12 it depends on the cell size (values below are based on 3 x std.dev. of velocity): 10 cm = 0.18288. see the OSW hydroacoustics forum for more details.

12) You can switch between bottom track and GGA (GPS) and VTG (GPS) by pressing cntrl-G or cntrl-B or control V.

13) To see all three tracks (GGA-GPS, VTG-GPS, and bottom track) go to view - graphs - ship tracks - ship track. Then you can see your tracks. Hopefully they all generally line up. If not you probably have a beam 3 misalignment so make a note of where beam 3 is located (and the streampro power/comm blue box) and we can correct it.

14) Keep an eye on the "aquire control" window in the bottom right hand corner. It will tell you in red if something isn't right (i.e. ADCP status NOT PINGING or Raw Data NOT RECORDING or GPS VALID or NOT USED). Keep a watch on that.

15) iF using blue tooth communications, keep the bluetooth settings window open to make sure you are connected to the instrument (Streampro or GPS bluetooth radio).

General StreamPro / Winriver II / IPAQ troubleshooting

1) Communications: This is generally the biggest problem.

• If you have "lost ensembles" you probably have a communications problem
• Sometimes the bluetooth communication is lost and you need to "reconnect" to the device in the bluetooth settings window
• Sometimes the order in which you connect can be a problem, or maybe some other program is already using the com (hyperterminal, etc).
• low battery on the streampro (yellow blinking light)
• you are out of range of the bluetooth/IPAQ/Laptop. Typical range is only 10 meters unless you have an external bluetooth radio, which can extend the connection up to 150 m.

2) Hydrology: This is the other big problem, sometimes the streampro may not be the right tool for the job!

• The streampro works best in shallow water.

IPAQ Instructions:

1) Ipaq configurations: To start bluetooth go to Settings -> COnnections -> Bluetooth ... then select the 'Bluetooth Manager' in the bottom of the screen. Click and hold 'RDI SPro 00597: SPP' when prompted, click 'Connect' 2) Note, the maximum depth you can use with the StreamPro is 4 meters.

Another way to get there: Click 'Start' then 'iPAQ Wireless' then 'Bluetooth Manager' then click & hold 'RDI SPro 00597: SPP' when prompted, click 'Connect'

Along those lines, the bluetooth connection is finicky unless you do things in the following order:
1) Turn on Stream Pro
2) Connect via Bluetooth to the Stream Pro
3) Start StreamPro on the iPaq.

After finishing gaging the river shutdown in this sequence (again for better connections later):
1) Select 'Exit' from the menu in the lower left corner of the iPaq (don't just minimize) to quit StreamPro on the Ipaq
2) Disconnect and turn off the Bluetooth on the iPaq
3) Turn off the Stream Pro ADP.

3) To change settings (numbers) from the iPAQ click on the keyboard in the lower right corner.

4) StreamPro Setup:

+ Things you may need to change each time you configure:  
Transducer depth  (which is the depth from the water surface to the sensor head)
+ Things you should rarely change (I anticipate anyway): 
Cell Size (0.10 m), # of Depth Cells (20), Maximum Depth (2.1 m)
+ You can specify the file name of the configuration file if you "save as" and change the file name from the default to the river you are on and maybe the date.
+ A bit more about the rarely changed settings... The cell size can range from 2 to 10 centimeters.  So if you are running in shallower water you could reduce the cell size.  The cell size refers to how thick the cells are vertically in the water column.  The maximum number of cells the unit can process however, is limited to 20 so, if you wanted finer resolution at one meter you couldn't set the cell size to anything less than 5 cm.  

+ Time will tell with the ADP but the RiverCat sometimes did better when the total cell number wasn't maximized.  We will see with experience whether we should reduce the number of depth cells measured.  I think it was a function of the processor.  You could use a higher number of depth cells if you were willing to set a longer integration period.  The RDI unit doesn't allow you to set the integration period so this may be a non issue but we will see with practical experience.

Additionally, if the stream is less than 1m deep AND the stream velocity is less than 0.25 m/s you can set the depth to 1m or less which will allow you to use the ADP in low noise mode for better accuracy during low flows (this is mode 13, rarely used).

5) Communication Test -- when turning on the unit do a communication test. Click on the 'Test' tab and then click 'Instrument'. From the menu that appears select 'Self-Test' or 'Start Pinging'. You'll get an error message if there are communications problems. If there are problems you may need to turn the ADP on and off again. Also, you should then turn the bluetooth on the Ipaq off and then on again. The final step is to reconnect to the StreamPro ADP as outlined in step 3.

6) When you're ready to gage click the 'DataCollection' menu towards the top of the screen. From this screen click 'Transect Start'. This will bring up a new window where you can select whether you're on the left bank or right bank and the distance from the edge.. Then make measurements until getting to the other bank.

7) The distance from the edge (left bank or right bank edge) is defined for these measurements as the distance to the edge from the point where the ADP is able to measure two good measurements in the vertical column.

8) You can download the data by copying the files (configuration and data files) onto a laptop and load them into WinRiver to river. WinRiver is located on the little toughbook.

9) Note that the IPAQ needs to be completely turned off or the battery will die. Often, if you press the off button, it will go into standby and the screen will be so dim that you would think it was off. Charge up the IPAQ overnight before you head out in the field the next day. There are two spare batteries for the IPAQ.