Since their introduction 22 years ago, lightning mapping arrays (LMA) have played a central role in the investigation of lightning physics. Even in recent years with the proliferation of digital interferometers and the introduction of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope, LMAs still play an important role in lightning science. LMA networks use a simple windowing technique that records the highest pulse in either 80 μs or 10 μs fixed windows in order to apply a time-of-arrival location technique. In this work, we develop an LMA-emulator that uses lightning data recorded by LOFAR to simulate an LMA, and we use it to test three new styles of pulse windowing. We show that they produce very similar results as the more traditional LMA windowing, implying that LMA lightning mapping results are relatively independent of windowing technique. In addition, each LMA station has its GPS-conditioned clock. While the timing accuracy of GPS receivers has improved significantly over the years, they still significantly limit the timing measurements of the LMA. Recently, new time-of-arrival techniques have been introduced that can be used to self-calibrate systematic offsets between different receiving stations. Applying this calibration technique to a set of data with 32 ns uncertainty, observed by the Colorado LMA, improves the timing uncertainty to 19 ns. This technique is not limited to LMAs and could be used to help calibrate future multi-station lightning interferometers.

中文翻译：

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闪电映射阵列的时序校准和加窗技术比较

自 22 年前推出以来，闪电映射阵列 (LMA) 在闪电物理研究中发挥了核心作用。即使近年来随着数字干涉仪的普及和低频阵列 (LOFAR) 射电望远镜的推出，LMA 仍然在闪电科学中发挥着重要作用。LMA 网络使用简单的窗口技术，在 80 μs 或 10 μs 固定窗口中记录最高脉冲，以应用到达时间定位技术。在这项工作中，我们开发了一个 LMA 仿真器，它使用 LOFAR 记录的闪电数据来模拟 LMA，并使用它来测试三种新的脉冲窗口样式。我们表明它们产生的结果与更传统的 LMA 窗口非常相似，这意味着 LMA 闪电映射结果相对独立于窗口技术。此外，每个 LMA 站都有其 GPS 条件时钟。尽管多年来 GPS 接收器的授时精度已显着提高，但它们仍然严重限制了 LMA 的授时测量。最近，引入了新的到达时间技术，可用于自校准不同接收站之间的系统偏移。将这种校准技术应用于科罗拉多 LMA 观测到的一组具有 32 ns 不确定性的数据，将时序不确定性提高到 19 ns。该技术不仅限于 LMA，还可用于帮助校准未来的多站闪电干涉仪。引入了新的到达时间技术，可用于自校准不同接收站之间的系统偏移。将这种校准技术应用于科罗拉多 LMA 观测到的一组具有 32 ns 不确定性的数据，将时序不确定性提高到 19 ns。该技术不仅限于 LMA，还可用于帮助校准未来的多站闪电干涉仪。引入了新的到达时间技术，可用于自校准不同接收站之间的系统偏移。将这种校准技术应用于科罗拉多 LMA 观测到的一组具有 32 ns 不确定性的数据，将时序不确定性提高到 19 ns。该技术不仅限于 LMA，还可用于帮助校准未来的多站闪电干涉仪。