MWAVES - software for calculating the directional spectra and statistical properties of the wave field from MAVS-3 triplet measurements

Real-time knowledge of the directional spectrum and other statistical properties of the wave environment in coastal waters and harbors is critically important information for those involved in marine operations. Historical and real-time wave and tide statistics are also important for coastal engineering applications and for investigations of coastal processes. The spectral and statistical properties of the wave field can be calculated from accurate time-series of "triplet" measurements, either the three Cartesian components of the velocity or the pressure and the two horizontal components of the velocity. MAVS-3, the 3rd generation of the Modular Acoustic Velocity Sensor, can make the necessary velocity vector and pressure measurements. Additionally, MAVS3 can telemeter the measurements to shore in real-time and/or store them internally for later processing. Accurately and reliably calculating the spectral and statistical properties of a complex stochastic process is, however, inherently a non-trivial task. This paper describes MWAVES, a software package that performs these calculations and presents the results to the operator in easily interpreted graphical and numeric forms. The kernel of routines that perform the calculation is fast and the graphical user interface through which the operator controls processing is full-featured and easy to use. A time history of the evolving statistical properties of the wave environment can be logged and plotted and all graphs can be stored in standard formats for later recall. MWAVES was developed for use with MAVS-3 data, but it has been successfully used with MAVS-2 measurements and can be applied to the triplet measurements of other instruments.