Timing Calibration and Windowing Technique Comparison for Lightning Mapping Arrays.

Area of Science:

• Atmospheric science
• Geophysics
• Electromagnetism

Background:

• Lightning mapping arrays (LMA) have been vital for lightning physics research for over two decades.
• Despite advancements like digital interferometers and the LOFAR radio telescope, LMAs remain important in lightning science.
• Traditional LMA networks use fixed time windows for pulse detection and time-of-arrival (TOA) location.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel LMA emulator using LOFAR data to test new pulse windowing techniques.
• To assess the impact of different windowing strategies on LMA performance.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of new TOA self-calibration methods for improving lightning data accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Developed an LMA emulator utilizing lightning data from the LOFAR radio telescope.
• Simulated LMA operation with three new pulse windowing styles and compared them to traditional methods.
• Applied a novel TOA self-calibration technique to Colorado LMA data to reduce timing uncertainty.

Main Results:

• The new pulse windowing techniques produced results comparable to traditional LMA windowing, indicating robustness.
• LMA lightning mapping results appear largely independent of the specific windowing technique used.
• Self-calibration reduced timing uncertainty in Colorado LMA data from 32 ns to 19 ns.

Conclusions:

• LMA lightning mapping is robust across different windowing techniques.
• Advanced TOA self-calibration significantly enhances timing accuracy for LMAs.
• These calibration techniques are applicable to future multi-station lightning interferometers.