Ocean Wave Measurement (Wave Height, Period and Direction)Using Single GPS Buoy

Hossein Nahavandchi hossein.nahavandchi@ntnu.no Division of Geomatics, NTNU www.geomatikk.ntnu.no Geodesy and Hydrography days 2012 7-8 November, Stavanger

A Cooperation Project with the Fugro OCEANOR AS

Forecasts of Wave Conditions

It is important to all who live, work or travel on or near sea and ocean To improve the wave prediction models, field measurements of wave parameters are necessary, which are: Wave Height Wave Period Wave Direction

Traditional devices for wave measurements

Ultrasonic: Measures the distance to the surface of the sea through the emission of ultrasonic waves from an observation device anchored at the sea bottom. Distance limitations (?) Accelerometer: With no restriction as to its location can measure wave parameters by detecting the horizontal and vertical motions of the buoy. Expensive (?) GPS Buoy is a cheap alternative

Analysis of Ocean Wave in the time domain

Wave height and wave period are commonly used as an indication of a given wave file. There are different methods for definition of the wave height and period. Zero down-crossing method is used to define wave height and period. The Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses (PIANC) and The International Association of Hydraulic Research (IAHR) use similar definitions.

Zero Crossing method

Significant Wave Height

The significant wave height is the value determined by decomposing a wave record obtained during a certain period into individual waves, estimating those heights, rearranging the heights in descending order in size, and averaging the heights for the top one-third.

3 Hs = Hi N i =1
N 3

Maximum Wave Height

Maximum wave height is defined as the largest of all crests to adjacent trough value in the record. It is possible that the maximum wave height is not the one causing the maximum crest height. The most probable maximum wave height in a record can be estimated from the value of root mean square wave height (Hrms) or equivalently significant wave height.

H max H rms

0.2886 = ln N + H rms ln N 1 2 = Hi N i =1
N 1 2

Average Wave Period

Ts Tz = Nz

Wave Direction

GPS Measurements Errors

Error Sources Satellite Ephemeris Satellite clock error Ionospheric effects Tropospheric effects Multipath Receiver noise Range (1) ~2.5m ~2m ~5m ~0.5m ~1m ~1m Expected accuracy (3) of a single GPS mounted on a buoy could be around 10 m horizontally and 20 m vertically. The error sources are presented in the Table. It is believed that the period of the error sources, fluctuations caused by the GPS system, is on the order of 100 seconds to several tens of minutes (the time constant of the GPS errors). This means that almost all power of the GPS positioning error exists in a band less than 0.01 Hz.

A Single GPS Receiver Height Data

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The GPS receiver is Navman Jupiter 21. The sampling rate is 1 Hz and around one hour of data is recorded for the test experiment. The point positioning using C/A code pseudorange measurements were performed. Although the GPS antenna is fixed, the positioning results moves on account of GPS errors.

The Power Spectrum of the GPS Height Data

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This figure shows the Power spectrum of the GPS positioning data of the previous slide. This is the Power spectrum of the error of GPS point positioning using C/A code pseudorange data. As it was stated in previous Slides, almost all of the power of the GPS positioning error exists in a band less than 0.01 Hz.
10 10 10 Frequency (Hz) 10 10

Power Spectrum

A Perfect Harmonic Ocean Wave Motion

We know that the buoy movement excited by ocean wave is rotational with a period of 0.1-20 seconds, which corresponds to 0.05-10 Hz. The Figure in this slide shows an experiment performed in laboratory, simulating a wave motion with a period of 11 seconds. The power spectrum of this wave data is shown in the next slide.

The Power Spectrum of the Simulated Wave Data

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Power Spectrum

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We find an energy peak located at 0.09 Hz as it was expected.

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Key Principle of Ocean Wave Measurement using GPS

Almost the entire power spectrum of ocean wave data are in a band higher than 0.05 Hz. Therefore, a suitably designed high-pass filter can extract the movement of a GPS equipped buoy excited by ocean waves with minimum influence from GPS positioning errors. When the high pass filter is adopted, the mean value of the antennas height becomes zero. This is not a problem since the height of the buoy is not the parameter in question. We would like to measure the buoys rotational movement.

Process Algorithm
GPS Observations Fourier Transformation

High Pass Filtering

Transfer to Space Domain

Wave Parameters

Laboratory experiment
To test the algorithm in the previous slide, we perform a laboratory test using an apparatus that consists of a wave simulator and a GPS receiver. The wave simulator has a rotating arm to which a GPS antenna is fixed. The rotating arm simulates the motion of a buoy floating in the ocean. The diameter of rotation is 2 meter (wave height). The rotation speed can be controlled. The period is set to 11 seconds and the direction of the arm to 266 degrees from the north.

Computations
The coordinate system is transformed from latitude, longitude, and height to an east, north and height local frame. The origin of the local frame is the initial position from GPS. The jumps in the GPS position data are removed before high-pass filtering. Apply the high-pass filter to the pre-processed GPS data by selecting the cut-off frequency. Selecting cut-off frequency is very important process as after filtering there will be very few signals from GPS in a band higher than 0.01 Hz. Therefore results will be very variable and dependent on the cut-off frequency. A new procedure to select the cut-off frequency is suggested based on the RMS of the transformed GPS data back to the time domain from frequency domain after filtering. After filtering, the wave parameters are computed by the appropriate equations in the previous slides.

High-pass Filtered GPS Data in East Axis- Lab Test

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High-pass Filtered GPS Data in North Axis- Lab Test

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High-pass Filtered GPS Data in Height Axis- Lab Test

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The Wave Parameters Estimated from GPS Data- Lab Test

Parameter Experiment result True Value

Wave height

2.01 m

2m

Wave period

11.5 sec

11 sec

Wave direction 264.6 degree 266 degree

An Open-sea Moored Field Test

A GPS buoy moored along the coast of the An-Ping harbor in Tainan, Taiwan. The same procedure as the laboratory experiment was carried out. A new cut-off frequency was estimated based on the suggested procedure, which is different from the laboratory experiment. Wave parameters were computed using same formulas.

High-pass Filtered Height GPS Data Open-sea Moored GPS Buoy

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4

Z(m)

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Time (Sec)

Wave Parameters Estimation Open-sea Moored GPS Buoy

Parameter Result

Wave Height

17 cm

Wave period

18.8 sec

Wave direction

226.5 degree

Another study in the north-west coast of Taiwan resulted a wave height between 20 cm to 4 meter in a two month period. The same study resulted a wave period between 5 seconds to 15 seconds or more at the same location.