A novel algorithm for real-time adaptive signal detection in lightning location system

The VHF band intracloud lightning location and detection system consist of mutli-stations, where the VHF band intracloud lightning signal is detected and preprocessed. The detection result and the acquired data are transmitted to the central station, where the lightning location is accomplished by processing those acquired lightning data. Based on the short-time energy detection, this paper describes a novel digital signal processing algorithm for adaptively detecting VHF intracloud lightning signals. The algorithm continually computes and updates the long-term statistics of the background noise. Using this noise model, a set of adaptive thresholds is implemented to detect the lightning signal. The algorithm described herein is well suited for real-time implementation on digital signal processing hareware. This paper presents the theory of the adaptive algorithm, provides an algorithm block diagram, and demonstrate its emplementation and performance of the real-acquired VHF band lightning data at the frequency of 290MHz.