Nortek

Nortek supported instruments

This page lists the Nortek instrument Models which are supported by the toolbox, and the data formats required for each of them. If you have some data from an unsupported instrument or format, submit an issue with details and files examples, and I'll look into adding support for this new instrument/format.

Nortek ADCP

The toolbox is able to parse raw binary data from the following formats: paradopp and AD2CP. These binary formats are specified in the Nortek System Integrator Manual and the Integrator's Guide AD2CP.

IMPORTANT: It is assumed that the data is referring to magnetic North by default and that no magnetic declination correction has been applied.

• Aquadopp Profiler (.prf files) using the aquadoppProfiler parser.
• Aquadopp Velocity current metre (.aqd files) using the aquadoppVelocity parser.
• Continental (.cpr files) using the continental parser.
• AWAC (.wpr files) using the awac parser.
• Signature (.ad2cp files) using the signature parser.

Velocity

For the Aquadopp Profiler, Continental and AWAC, the following data is extracted:

• Time
• Northward velocity (at each time and depth)
• Eastward velocity (at each time and depth)
• Upward velocity (at each time and depth)
• Acoustic backscatter (at each time and depth)
• Battery voltage (at each time)
• Temperature (at each time)
• Relative pressure (at each time)
• Pitch (at each time)
• Roll (at each time)
• Heading (at each time)

If the file has been processed by the Storm software then the extra fields can be read:

• Northward, Eastward and Upward velocity corrected from tilt (at each time and depth)
• signal to noise ratio (at each time and depth)
• error code (at each time and depth)
• current speed and direction (at each time and depth)
• profile error code (at each time)
• qc flag (at each time and depth)

For the Aquadopp Velocity current metre the same data as above is extracted except that it is only at one depth.

For the Signature ADCPs, the following data is extracted:

• Time
• Northward velocity (at each time and depth)
• Eastward velocity (at each time and depth)
• Upward velocity (at each time and depth)
• Upward velocity from vertical beam (at each time and depth)
• Acoustic backscatter (at each time and depth)
• Correlation magnitude (at each time and depth)
• Battery voltage (at each time)
• Temperature (at each time)
• Relative pressure (at each time)
• Speed of sound (at each time)
• Pitch (at each time)
• Roll (at each time)
• Heading (at each time)

Wave

In order to read wave data from an AWAC/AWACAST, you can use the AWAC/AWACAST program to perform a data conversion and select "wave" output to create .whd and .wad file. Then use QuickWave or Storm software to generate the processed wave data files (.whr, .wap, .wdr, .was and .wds).

If these files are presents, the following data is extracted. The AWAC wave data is loaded separately from the profile data, as it is on a different time scale:

• Time
• Frequency
• Direction
• Wave variance spectral density (at each time and frequency)
• Wave direction spectral density (at each time and frequency)
• Significant wave height (at each time)
• Zero upcrossing period (at each time)
• Wave from direction (at each time)
• Wave directional spread (at each time)
• Temperature (at each time)
• Relative pressure (at each time)
• Battery voltage (at each time)
• Heading (at each time)
• Pitch (at each time)
• Roll (at each time)
• Wave directional variance spectral density (at each time, frequency and direction)

To read wave data, the parsers assumes :

• the .whd, .whr, .wap, .was, .wdr and .wds exist and are in the same directory as the .wpr file.
• the .wds file contains 90 rows per frequency.
• the files adhere to the layouts as follow.

.whd file format

The toolbox currently assumes that the wave data .whd file columns adhere to the following format:

Column	Field	Unit
1	Month	1-12
2	Day	1-31
3	Year
4	Hour	0-23
5	Minute	0-59
6	Second	0-59
7	Burst counter
8	No of wave data records
9	Cell position	m
10	Battery voltage	V
11	Soundspeed	m/s
12	Heading	degrees
13	Pitch	degrees
14	Roll	degrees
15	Minimum pressure	dbar
16	Maximum pressure	dbar
17	Temperature	degrees C
18	CellSize	m
19	Noise amplitude beam 1	counts
20	Noise amplitude beam 2	counts
21	Noise amplitude beam 3	counts
22	Noise amplitude beam 4	counts
23	AST window start	m

.whr file format

This file is read in order to find out whether the waves processing has had compass/directional offset applied or not. It is expected to find this information in the following format:

Compass offset 0.0 deg

and / or:

Directional Offset 0.00 deg

.wap file format

The toolbox currently assumes that the wave data .wap file columns adhere to one or the other following formats:

Column	Field	Unit
1	Month	1-12
2	Day	1-31
3	Year
4	Hour	0-23
5	Minute	0-59
6	Second	0-59
7	Spectrum type	(0-Pressure, 1-Velocity, 3-AST)
8	Significant height (Hm0)	(m)
9	Mean 1/3 height (H3)	(m)
10	Mean 1/10 height (H10)	(m)
11	Maximum height (Hmax)	(m)
12	Mean Height (Hmean)	(m)
13	Mean period (Tm02)	(s)
14	Peak period (Tp)	(s)
15	Mean zerocrossing period (Tz)	(s)
16	Mean 1/3 Period (T3)	(s)
17	Mean 1/10 Period (T10)	(s)
18	Maximum Period (Tmax)	(s)
19	Peak direction (DirTp)	(deg)
20	Directional spread (SprTp)	(deg)
21	Mean direction (Mdir)	(deg)
22	Unidirectivity index
23	Mean Pressure	(dbar)
24	Mean AST distance	(m)
25	Mean AST distance (Ice)	(m)
26	No Detects
27	Bad Detects
28	Number of Zero-Crossings
29	Current speed (wave cell)	(m/s)
30	Current direction (wave cell)	(deg)
31	Error Code

Column	Field	Unit
1	Month	1-12
2	Day	1-31
3	Year
4	Hour	0-23
5	Minute	0-59
6	Second	0-59
7	Significant height (Hs)	(m)
8	Mean zerocrossing period (Tm02)	(s)
9	Peak period (Tp)	(s)
10	Peak direction (DirTp)	(deg)
11	Directional spread (Spr1)	(deg)
12	Mean direction (Mdir)	(deg)
13	Mean Pressure	(dbar)
14	Unidirectivity index
15	Error Code

.wdr file format

The toolbox currently assumes that the wave data .wdr file columns adhere to the format listed below. The first line in the file gives frequency vector values for 1-n in Hz:

Column	Field	Unit
1	Directional Spectrum	Deg
2	Directional Spectrum	Deg
.	.	.
n	Directional Spectrum	Deg

.was file format

The toolbox currently assumes that the wave data .was file columns adhere to the format listed below. The first line in the file gives frequency vector values for 1-n in Hz:

Column	Field	Unit
1	Power Spectrum	m^2/Hz
2	Power Spectrum	m^2/Hz
.	.	.
n	Power Spectrum	m^2/Hz

.wds file format

The toolbox currently assumes that the wave data .wds file adheres to the following format:

• Each row is one frequency 0.02:0.01:[0.49 or 0.99] Hz
• Each column is dicretized by 4 degrees 0:4:356 degrees:

Burst	Size	Unit
1	n frequencies rows x 90 columns	m^2/Hz/deg (Normalized-Energy/deg)
2	n frequencies rows x 90 columns	m^2/Hz/deg (Normalized-Energy/deg)
.	.	.
n	n frequencies rows x 90 columns	m^2/Hz/deg (Normalized-Energy/deg)