The spherical model of time and location calculation of the lightning discharge is given. The calculations are made by means of radio signals detection by sensors of the distributed network. The full solution of a problem of lightning discharge cloud-ground type location for three sensors is given. Based on this task the lightning location method for a network of sensors was developed. By means of computational experiments, the analysis of accuracy of the model depending on radio signals detection accuracy at observing stations was done.
IntroductionSpecialists in many areas face the problem of lightning protection and assessment of spatial distribution of lightning discharges. The number of high buildings and site development increases; combustible and explosive substances are widely used in the industry; sensitive electronic devices which react to the interferences caused by lightning discharges are using more and more often in electronics and communication. As a result, damages, caused by lightning discharges, business interruption might take place and in some cases can be fatal.
On the unit sphere, the geometric problem of calculating the position of a point relative to three given points is considered. We know the length of three spherical segments that go out from the given points in the direction of the unknown point. The requirement must be fulfilled: the distance from each point to an unknown point must be equal to the sum of the length of the segment outgoing from this point, and some increment, the same for all three segments. In the article, the conditions for the solvability of a geometric problem are established by the methods of spherical trigonometry and vector algebra. It is proved that when they are fulfilled, the problem is always solvable. The number of solutions is two, except in rare cases where there is only one solution. A solution method is presented. One of the practical applications is the problem of determining the time and location of a cloud-to-ground lightning discharge, which is directly reduced to this problem.
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