A low-frequency lightning location system was established and operated. The time-reversal approach in the frequency domain (TRFD) is applied to the system for three-dimensional (3-D) lightning source location finding. The TRFD method uses back propagation of the signals detected at each site and determines the source location automatically using the focusing point of the back-propagated waves. Three cases are reported to showcase the capability of the method. The first case is the 3-D localization of an intra-cloud flash over the network. Both TRFD and time-of-arrival (TOA) method provide LF lightning sources that are in consistent with very high frequency (VHF) sources. The lightning sources located by TRFD method reveal more details and are more continuous compared to those obtained by TOA method used in this paper. The second case concerns the localization of an artificially triggered lightning flash with a horizontal error of 30 m by TRFD. The third case is a multi-stroke cloud-to-ground flash that shows location differences between four return strokes (RSs) being less than 60 m. Furthermore, a special case was used to demonstrate the ability of the proposed method in locating RS grounding points by combining two successive RSs when the TOA is not available.

In this paper, the conventional rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) method is improved by using the Cayley-Hamilton theorem. Using the proposed method, the forward and backward diffraction efficiencies of each order are solved directly from the eigenmatrix. At the same time, the calculation results of the conventional method, the proposed method, and the CST simulations are in good agreement with each other. The results show that the proposed method has obvious advantages in computational efficiency.

In this paper we extended the Associated Hermite (AH) FDTD method theoretically and used it to analyze various physical fields, which are electromagnetic field, acoustic field and heat-transfer field. The AH differential transformation operator is developed theoretically as a basic element for setting a time- frequency bridge, where several common operators such as differential, second-order differential and integral linear operator, etc. on the concept of signal processing and analyzing can be expediently transformed, which leads to a unified and much simpler derivation to construct the previous AH FDTD formula. Therefore, it gives a reconsideration for AH FDTD to calculate a more general or even arbitrary liner physic field problems, which are focused on the commonly partial differential equations. Finally, based on the time-frequency bridge theory, we adopted several examples for verification from the formula derivation to numerical validation in electromagnetic field, acoustic field and heat-transfer field, respectively.

To clarify the background of multiple burst (MB) specifications in the aviation lightning test standards, a broadband lightning electromagnetic field measurement system was employed to collect 91 sets of VLF/LF band nature flash data. A total of 719 typical repetitive pulse (RP) groups were identified, and 163,589 single pulse samples were analyzed statistically. The variational mode decomposition (VMD) method and a trend-free correlation on index (TFCI) were used to extract RPs from the slowly varying trends and high-frequency noises from the measured data. The time-domain characteristics of four kinds of RPs corresponding to the lightning discharge events—initial breakdown pulse (IBP), regular pulse bursts (RPB), chaotic pulse train (CPT), and dart-stepped leader (DSL)—were investigated. By comparing previous statistics and the definition in current international aviation standards, the intrinsic correlation between RPs and the defined parameters of MBs was explored. New recommendations for the MB test standard were subsequently proposed.

In this study, lightning-induced currents due to a triggered lightning with a strike distance of 8 m were measured at an unenergized 200-m overhead line. The characteristics of the coupling current excited by four return strokes were analyzed in time and frequency domains, respectively. Moreover, a 3-D finite-difference time-domain (3-D FDTD) model was built to calculate the coupling current, which was verified by comparing the simulation results against the recorded data. The influence of the constant return stroke velocity and the variable velocity on the coupling current was analyzed by using the 3-D FDTD model. The results indicate that the lightning-induced currents on the overhead line are significantly affected by the nonmonotonically variable return stroke velocity.