UVS Chief Operating Officer, Neil Trenaman, attended the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) ADCP Quality Control Meeting in Hobart, Tasmania in December as an invited observer.

The meeting reviewed the current situation with the IMOS Mooring Group and included representatives from most IMOS regions. The focus of the meeting was on Quality Control (QC) of ADCP data resulting from mooring deployments. Neil said that independent verification and validation of ADCP instruments was an essential step in ensuring that high quality data resulted from ocean observations. “ADCP instruments contain a number of sensors that are subject to drift of failure”, said Neil, “These include pressures sensors, tilt sensors and the magnetic compass. Failure or degradation of these sensors has the potential to impact the quality of ADCP data”. In addition Neil said that it was logical to periodically check the operation on ADCPs in a known environment like a test tank to confirm that there was no failure or degradation of the acoustic beams due to damage or deterioration of components.

It was generally agreed that fundamental to data QC was the reliance on the integrity of instrument sampling and collecting the data. Neil was able to meet with representatives from AIMS and CSIRO to review data QC practices and explain the uses for various TRDI ADCP data quality parameters and how they could be incorporated in the IMOS ADCP data QC Tool Box.

Neil announced that UVS had established an Australian-based ADCP service and verification centre. He said that he was very happy to be able to offer this service to Australian customers which would enable rapid turnaround for ADCP service and verification and remove the need to ship instruments to Teledyne RDI in the USA. Neil said that UVS was the only certified ADCP service and repair centre outside of the Teledyne groups in San Diego, USA and Nice, France. UVS has worked closely with Teledyne RDI to setup the centre and has invested in training for engineers and technicians at the Teledyne RDI facility in Poway, California.

UVS “Gold Standard” ADCP under bench top test.	UVS “Gold Standard” ADCP has been tested and certified by Teledyne RDI.