A system and method for detecting electrical events, often a corona associated with an impending lightning strike, including a coupling mechanism configured to establish an electromagnetic connection with a conductive substrate to receive signals intercepted by the conductive substrate. A detector circuit converts and discriminates the received signals into output signals. An output mechanism records and/or transmits the output signals, as well as determines if the output signal represents a qualified event signal.

A method for warning about lightning activity in wind farms which is suitable for predicting the generation of upward lightning originating from the wind-driven power generators the wind farm and for warning about the possible generation is provided. To that end, in the method the presence or absence of a storm cell in the wind farm and/or in the vicinity thereof, within a radius of less than 400 km, is detected; the local electric field in the wind farm is measured, at least one atmospheric condition is identified or measured under given premises, and the probabilities of the generation of upward lightning originating from the wind-driven power generators of the wind farm are determined depending on the result of the measurements, identifications and detections, a warning signal being transmitted in the event that the determined probability exceeds a given threshold value.

A system for predicting a triggered lightning strike upon an aircraft, which includes an antenna for collecting an RF signal. The system includes one or more processors and a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing data into a database and program code that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the system to receive as input a filtered, amplified form of the RF signal collected by the antenna and a non-filtered, amplified form of the RF signal collected by the antenna. The system determines a difference between the filtered, amplified form of the RF signal and the non-filtered and amplified form of the RF signal. The difference is a static signal. The system determines the triggered lightning strike upon the aircraft based on the static signal.

A method for calculating the damage of a carbon fiber composite reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite under an action of a single lightning current component with a fast-rising rate is disclosed. Through the obtained dynamic impedance curves of the CFRP composite under the action of the non-destructive lightning current component, the anisotropic conductivity of the CFRP composite under the action of the single lightning current component with specified parameters is extrapolated based on pre-designed lightning damage simulation conditions. The anisotropic conductivity is taken as the initial condition of the conductivity of the CFRP composite in the coupled thermoelectric simulation model, which is able to better simulate the real lightning effect on the CFRP composite, and is able to more accurately obtain the lightning damage of the CFRP composite and analyze the relationship between the lightning damage parameters.

Systems and methods are disclosed to detect cloud-to-ground (CG) strokes that include and/or are followed by continuing current (CC). For example, earth-based lightning data may be generated for one or more lightning pulses detected in an environmental space using multiple earth-based lightning detection sensors. Space-based lightning data may be received for one or more optical signals detected in the environmental space using one or more space-based lightning detection sensors. It may be determined from the earth-based and space-based lightning data whether a lightning pulse is a CG stroke that includes or is followed by CC. Charge transfer of a CG stroke with CC may be obtained from measurements of electromagnetic fields by an array of electromagnetic field sensors to generate training data. A machine learning model may be trained to relate space-based and/or earth-based lightning data to charge transfer where there is no proximate array of electromagnetic field sensors.

An aircraft includes a fuselage, a main wing, and a flight controller. The main wing is attached to the fuselage and configured to generate lift that acts on the aircraft. The flight controller includes an electric field direction estimator, an attitude calculator, and an attitude controller. The electric field direction estimator is configured to estimate a direction of an electric field around the aircraft. The attitude calculator is configured to calculate a target airframe attitude that reduces a possibility of occurrence of lightning strike on the aircraft, on the basis of the direction of the electric field estimated by the electric field direction estimator. The attitude controller is configured to control an attitude of an airframe of the aircraft to cause the attitude of the airframe to be the target airframe attitude calculated by the attitude calculator.

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, a system that facilitates detecting a transient electrical signal on a transmission medium that facilitates propagation of electromagnetic waves induced by the waveguide system and generating signal data associated with the transient electrical signal. Other embodiments are disclosed.

A lightning strike alarm system using a Bipolar Conventional Air Terminal comprises a sensor electrically connected to a rod element electrified by a ground charge and an electrification plate-cone or an electrification plate-tube electrified by a thunderstorm cloud, and configured to measure electric energy induced in the electrification plate-cone or the electrification plate-tube; and a controller configured to determine that the thunderstorm cloud has approached when the electrical energy is greater than a reference energy; and an alarm device configured to output an alarm signal, based on a result of determining that the thunderstorm cloud has approached, wherein the sensor comprises: a luminescence unit, including a voltage stabilizer preventing induction of a high voltage due to the thunderstorm cloud, configured to emit light by the electric energy; and a light receiver configured to receive the light, convert the light to electric energy, and transfer the electric energy to the controller.

A mobile card reader can be configured to connect to an input module of a mobile device. The mobile card reader can scan a magnetic stripe card from a structure exposed to lightning strikes in order to output a lightning-indicator signal to the input module. The lightning-indicator signal can be analyzed to determine a magnitude of a lightning strike to which the magnetic stripe card and the structure have been exposed.

An aircraft-based synthetic vision system (SVS) is disclosed. In embodiments, the SVS includes avionics processors in communication with onboard lightning detection sensors, which provide the SVS with real-time lightning data (e.g., bearing to, and distance from, the aircraft) about proximate lightning strikes. Based on the real-time lightning data, the avionics processors generate flight deck effects (FDE) corresponding to identified areas of lightning activity (e.g., a sufficient quantity of strikes, exceeding a strike threshold, within a particular airspace during a time window), each FDE having a particular bearing to and distance from the aircraft. The FDE data is processed by a display system aboard the aircraft (e.g., a cockpit-based primary flight display (PFD) or head-worn/heads-up display (HWD/HUD)) which incorporates the generated FDEs into the SVS status display provided to the flight crew or pilot at the appropriate bearing and distance relative to the aircraft.