Design and development of a low-cost GNSS drifter for rip currents

Lagrangian drifters are analogues of particles that are relevant to flow-field characterization and therefore they represent realistic surface currents compared to Eulerian techniques. The use of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) in such drifters with Differential Global Positioning System mode at high frequency (5-10 Hz) sampling and post-processing kinematic results in position estimates with centimeter-level accuracy. In the complex nearshore zone, deploying expensive instruments is a risk due to greater chances of loss. To avoid this, two drifters have been designed and developed using a low-cost Emlid Reach (R) GNSS receivers, antennae and off-the-shelf' PVC components to measure the surface currents. The dimensions of the drifters were optimally chosen to minimize the wind and wave impacts and to increase the subsurface current drag. An analysis of relative position and velocity errors from stationary observations indicates that the drifter can resolve motion accurately with minimal errors of +/- 1 cm and +/- 2 cm/s respectively. These drifters were used to measure surf zone currents at the RK Beach, Visakhapatnam during May 2018 and to successfully identify dangerous rip current zones. This study presents the design, development aspects, error analysis and testing of GNSS drifters. Although these drifters are primarily developed to measure the rip current velocities and trajectories in the nearshore zone, they can also be operated in any marine environment like rivers, lakes, estuaries, etc. without change in the design. An extensive study using a fleet of such drifters is required to understand the complex physical processes in the marine environment.