An identification procedure for lightning return strokes

In this paper an inverse procedure for the identification and the reconstruction of the waveform of the lightning return stroke current is presented. It is based on the acquisition of the vertical component of the electric field radiated by the discharge channel at different locations on the ground and it does not require any information about the channel base current. The approach has been validated by means of the numerical simulation of the classical Transmission Line, Modified Transmission Line Linear and Modified Transmission Line Exponential engineering models, showing good accuracy in all cases. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.