AUTONOMOUS ELECTRO-OPTICAL LIGHTNING IDENTIFICATION AND RANGING APPARATUS FOR, AND METHOD OF, ALERTING HUMANS AND PROTECTING EQUIPMENT

摘要

An omnidirectional lightning ranging, identification and protection system having circuits that produce no false alarms or failures to alarm, responsive to cloud to ground and cloud discharges, capable of differentiating between cloud to ground and cloud discharges, insensitive to background noise, autonomous with respect to power and communications conductors for operating reliably in the presense of nearby lightning discharges, requiring no field calibration, that provides local and remote lightning rate and range data, and that provides mechanisms for automatically signalling and disconnecting electrical equipment for the purpose of lightning protection. The system has circuits that are responsive to the electric field changes produced by lightning discharges in the frequency range between 2 khz and about 200 khz and to time coincident optical radiation in the 6000 to 9000 angstroms wavelength range. The sensor has circuits for receiving and manipulating the optical radiation component, circuits for receiving and manipulating the radiation field component and electrostatic field component, and other control circuits for generating the active and inactive states and for controlling a photovoltaic solar power source, and circuits for generating digital signals that produce encoded data representing the occurrence, type and range to signal sources of natural lightning origin and circuits for communicating the composite data signal to a remote controller for further processing and manipulation.