Patent · US Active

Method of lightning location using time difference of arrival technology with auto correlation

US7777676B2 · kind B2 · utility

1Cited by
5References
21Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJul 11, 2008
Grant dateAug 17, 2010
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 11, 2028

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01S11/08
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

There is disclosed a system for identifying a source location of an electromagnetic signal having a known waveform. Radio receiving equipment located at three of more monitoring stations receives and demodulates a radio frequency signal from a common source. A time stamp generator applies a time stamp to each block of N digital data samples derived from the received radio frequency signal at each monitoring station. A GPS timing signal can be used to synchronize the time stamp generator in each monitoring station. Further, replica generating hardware and/or software at each monitoring station periodically synchronously generates a replica waveform. An autocorrelation processor at each monitoring station determines a time offset between an occurrence of the known waveform in the signal, and an occurrence of the replica waveform at each monitoring station. The system also includes communication devices at each monitoring station for communicating the time offset from each monitoring station to a central processor which calculates a position of the source location using the time offset communicated from each monitoring station.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.