Internal data quality control

When collecting average current data with a Signature instrument, two data files will be generated and stored to the recorder:

  • [filename].ad2cp: This file contains raw, single-ping data with no quality control applied
  • [filename]_avgd.ad2cp: This file contains averaged current data. The data is averaged over the configured average interval, and internal quality control is applied before averaging.

The internal quality control done to the [filename]_avgd.ad2cp file discards all pings with a correlation below 50 % before averaging. This filtering is irreversible and ensures consistent data quality. For more information about the correlation parameter, please refer to the Correlation - theoretical background.

Percent good

In the averaged current data (found in the [filename]_avgd.ad2cp file) there is also a Percentage Good value which indicates the percentage of valid pings retained in each cell during an average interval after the internal quality control.

Example
You have configured your instrument to do 10 pings within each average interval. One ping in the first cell is discarded because its correlation is below 50 %. The resulting Percent Good value will be 90 % for this cell.

If the Percent Good value is lower than 50 % (meaning more than half the pings were discarded due to low correlation), the entire cell is flagged. Flagged data will be represented by extreme placeholder values:

  • Velocity: -32.767 m/s
  • Speed: 46.34 m/s
  • Direction: 225°

Updated