Locating lightning strikes using pairs of receiving stations detecting VLF waveforms from strike

摘要

A lightning detection system uses receiver stations 10 - 13 to receive VLF emission from a lightning strike 15. The receiver stations are connected by a communications network such as the Internet. At each station the VLF waveform of the strike and the time of arrival of the waveform is stored. The receiving stations are then configured as pairs, so that the wave form stored in each station is compared with that in each of the others in turn to produce a set of arrival time difference figures. For each station pair, a residual time difference caused by the detection of the emission being triggered by different parts of the waveform at each station of the pair is calculated. The arrival time differences and the residual time differences are then used to determine the location of the lightning strike.