mastmees/ligrid

Analog front-end and code for now defunct lightning detector network

ligrid

This is a copy of my sourceforge repository, the aim of this project was to produce better analog front-end, and linux support for Frank Kooiman's lightning radar network. Frank suddenly passed away, and the project faded.

Enjoy the trip down the memory lane.

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LiGrid is a lightning strike data collection system. It started out as data gathering front-end for Frank Kooiman's Lightning Radar network (see http://members.home.nl/fkooiman/lightning/) which is written in Visual Basic. At a time of writing Frank is working on his software to support LiGrid nodes for collecting data. LiGrid currently also simulates Frank's Lightning Radar node on the network so that other nodes can use it for triangulation data source.

Other lightning detection networks exists, but Frank Kooiman's is somewhat unique. First of all, the hardware is very cheap - basically an audio frequency amplifier built on an op-amp, connected to line input of audio interface on PC. Compare this to commercially available hardware that easily exceeds 1000 USD mark for a ground station. See the documentation directory for hardware description and schematics.

In Frank's system the signal is taken from two loop antennas which are mounted at 90 degree angle to each other. The signal difference between the loops is used to calculate a bearing of a signal, and two or more stations are then used to cross-check each other and triangulate to position a lightning strike. This method does not need highly precise timing, avoiding the need for GPS receiver that is used in some other detector networks. Of course, adding a GPS receiver support and additional network protocols would allow the same node to participate in multiple different detector networks.

To run LiGrid, you need a working OSS setup on your machine, antenna and amplifier. Makefile is provided that by default builds ligrid executable. Additional targets are clean, bare, restart, and kill (stops a running executable).

issuing make in utils directory will build two small utilities that may help you to diagnose hardware problems in early stage of development.