Open AccessTiming Calibration and Windowing Technique Comparison for Lightning Mapping Arrays
Author(s) -
Hare Brian M.,
Edens Harald,
Krehbiel Paul,
Rison William,
Scholten O.,
Buitink S.,
Corstanje A.,
Falcke H.,
Hörandel J. R.,
Huege Tim,
Krampah G. K.,
Mitra P.,
Mulrey K.,
Nelles Anna,
Pandya Hershal,
Rachen J. P.,
Thoudam S.,
Trinh T. N.,
ter Veen S.,
Winchen Tobias
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
earth and space science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 23
ISSN - 2333-5084
DOI - 10.1029/2020ea001523
Subject(s) - lofar , lightning (connector) , global positioning system , calibration , computer science , astronomical interferometer , time of arrival , remote sensing , real time computing , physics , telecommunications , geology , power (physics) , low frequency , interferometry , optics , quantum mechanics , wireless
Since their introduction 22 years ago, lightning mapping arrays (LMA) have played a central role in the investigation of lightning physics. Even in recent years with the proliferation of digital interferometers and the introduction of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope, LMAs still play an important role in lightning science. LMA networks use a simple windowing technique that records the highest pulse in either 80 μs or 10 μs fixed windows in order to apply a time‐of‐arrival location technique. In this work, we develop an LMA‐emulator that uses lightning data recorded by LOFAR to simulate an LMA, and we use it to test three new styles of pulse windowing. We show that they produce very similar results as the more traditional LMA windowing, implying that LMA lightning mapping results are relatively independent of windowing technique. In addition, each LMA station has its GPS‐conditioned clock. While the timing accuracy of GPS receivers has improved significantly over the years, they still significantly limit the timing measurements of the LMA. Recently, new time‐of‐arrival techniques have been introduced that can be used to self‐calibrate systematic offsets between different receiving stations. Applying this calibration technique to a set of data with 32 ns uncertainty, observed by the Colorado LMA, improves the timing uncertainty to 19 ns. This technique is not limited to LMAs and could be used to help calibrate future multi‐station lightning interferometers.