Accuracy Improvement of Discharge Measurement with Modification of Distance Made Good Heading

Remote control boats equipped with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) are widely accepted and have been welcomed by many hydrologists for water discharge, velocity profile, and bathymetry measurements. The advantages of this technique include high productivity, fast measurements, operator safety, and high accuracy. However, there are concerns about controlling and operating a remote boat to achieve measurement goals, especially during extreme events such as floods. When performing river discharge measurements, the main error source stems from the boat path. Due to the rapid flow in a flood condition, the boat path is not regular and this can cause errors in discharge measurements. Therefore, improvement of discharge measurements requires modification of boat path. As a result, the measurement errors in flood flow conditions are 12.3–21.8% before the modification of boat path, but 1.2–3.7% after the DMG modification of boat path. And it is considered that the modified discharges are very close to the observed discharge in the flood flow conditions. In this study, through the distance made good (DMG) modification of the boat path, a comprehensive discharge measurement with high accuracy can be achieved.