System for lightning ground stroke position by time of arrival discrimination
First Claim
1. A system for locating the position of the emission of a prescribed natural electrical disturbance comprising:
- a plurality of non collinear first means defining a perimeter, respectively situated at spaced apart geographical locations, for detecting said emission and encoding the occurrence of said emission in terms of a common timing source; and
second means, coupled to said first means, for deriving, from said encoded occurrences, the position of said emission irrespective of whether said emission occurred within or outside the perimeter bounded by said spaced apart geographical locations.
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Reexamination
Accused Products
Abstract
A lightning ground stroke location system employs a time-of-arrival discrimination scheme which uses, as its time synchronization base, the U.S. Coast Guard LORAN-C navigation network. The system comprises a plurality (at least three and preferably four) of geographically separated lightning stroke monitoring stations. Each station contains a lightning stroke detector and a timing signal generator that is synchronized with the timing signal generator at each other respective detection location. The timing signal generation equipment at each receiver is comprised of a LORAN-C signalling responsive receiver which monitors the same encoded signal group emitted from a common LORAN-C reverence source. Each of the ground stroke detection stations is further connected via a respective communication link to a central processing facility.
When a ground stroke occurs, the electromagnetic pulse emitted is detected by each listening station, which records the time of detection of the ground stroke by sampling an internal synchronized clock at that particular station so as to record the time that the stroke was detected relative to the standard timing cycle is emitted by the reference Coast Guard station source. This time data is then transmitted to the central processing station, which after compensating for relative LORAN time signal propagation delay calculates the stroke location.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A system for locating the position of the emission of a prescribed natural electrical disturbance comprising:
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a plurality of non collinear first means defining a perimeter, respectively situated at spaced apart geographical locations, for detecting said emission and encoding the occurrence of said emission in terms of a common timing source; and second means, coupled to said first means, for deriving, from said encoded occurrences, the position of said emission irrespective of whether said emission occurred within or outside the perimeter bounded by said spaced apart geographical locations. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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11. A system for locating the position of a lightning stroke comprising:
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a plurality of non collinear first means defining a perimeter, respectively situated at spaced apart geographical locations, for detecting said lightning stroke and encoding the occurrence of said lightning stroke in terms of a common LORAN navigation signal; and second means, coupled to said first means, for deriving, from said encoded occurrences, the position of said lightning stroke, irrespective of whether said lightning stroke occurred within or outside the perimeter bounded by said spaced apart geographical locations. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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14. For use with a system for detecting the emission of a prescribed natural electrical disturbance, and arrangement for selectively excluding an emission that has occurred beyond a prescribed range of interest comprising
first means for generating a waveform representative of the occurrence of an emission; - and
second means, coupled to said first means, for generating an output signal representative of the occurrence of an emission within said range of interest in response to the amplitude of said waveform successively exceeding prescribed threshold values within a preselected period of time. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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Specification