Development of a Space-charge-sensing System

Abstract

A system for remotely measuring the distribution of air space charge in real time is developed. The system consists of a loudspeaker and an electric field antenna. By propagating a burst of directional sound wave from the speaker, a modulation in the space charge and, therefore, an electric field change at ground is produced. The distribution of the space charge density is derived from the E-field change which can be measured by the E- field antenna. The developed system has been confirmed by both laboratory and field experiments.

Keywords

• Space charge
• remote sensing
• thundercloud
• lightning.