Wavelet analysis of the onset of vhf and microwave radiation emitted by lightning

Abstract

Lightning flash is an electrical discharge in air (dielectric breakdown) which emits electromagnetic (EM) fields across very wide spectra from a few Hertz up to visible wavelength. Electrical breakdown process is an important event that initiates lightning. For electrical breakdown process to occur, it must fulfill two conditions which are at least has one free electron and the electric field region is more than 3 MV/m. This process starts with electron avalanche in millimeter scale then grows into streamer in centimeter scale. Lastly, from streamer it will grow into leader in meter scale. It has already established that streamer emits intensely at Very High Frequency (VHF) band as it's already proven both theoretically and experimentally. A study by Cooray, theoretically proved that emission of electron avalanche peaks at microwave band. Air-gap parallel plate antenna which could operate at 1 GHz with remote sensing is designed and simulated to measure the microwave radiation emitted by lightning. Both temporal and wavelet analyses are used to compare the onset of microwave radiation and VHF radiation in both time and frequency domains to determine electron avalanche appears at which electromagnetic band.