Historical developments of current, wave, and turbulence measurements including those by MAVS

Abstract

Personal knowledge of the author stretches from the Geodyne 850 current meter, predecessor of the VACM in 1969 to his own development of MAVS and its recent innovations. Housings, recording media, velocity sensors, and compasses have changed most noticeably. Applications of current measurements are next most striking about the developments in our field over the last 40 years. Where and how current meters are deployed have migrated from ship lowered or fixed moorings to bottom tripods, profilers on a mooring, and even to shore-based HF Radar antennas. Present developments address power to operate autonomous instrumentation, data communication in real time, and novel adaptations of current measurement techniques to non-traditional current measurement problems like horizontal profiles, turbulent mixing, and wave monitoring. New applications will be presented at this workshop, with perhaps greater emphasis than new developments in sensing.