Technical Paper
An On-Line Lightning Monitoring System for Spacecraft Launch Support
1999-06-22
1999-01-2335
This paper provides a technical overview of the on-line lightning monitoring system (OLMS), a sophisticated second-generation system designed to monitor the effects of lightning-induced electromagnetic (EM) transients on ground-based space systems. The potential damage of sensitive electronic systems by lightning-induced EM transients is of concern to system designers, operators, and maintainers. The OLMS uses broadband sensors to measure free-field radiation (electric and magnetic fields), as well as energy coupled to conductors (current and voltage). Characterization of the measured signals is performed by two subsystems in parallel: an analog transient processor (TPM) and conventional state-of-the-art digitizers. While the digitizers are able to provide the actual high-frequency waveforms desired by many users, they have inherent limitations in duty cycle and large data storage requirements.