Abstract: There is discloses a new method for identifying an electromagnetic signal having a known waveform. The method includes using a lightning matched filter receiver having a bank of filters matched to nominal but arbitrary lightning waveforms for detecting lightning. The use of a lightning matched filter receiver facilitates detection of lightning discharges below the noise level. Positioning three or more monitoring stations at different spaced apart geographic locations where each monitoring station has a lightning matched filter receiver where the filters are matched to nominal but arbitrary lightning waveforms can be used to detect and determine the location of a lightning discharge.

Abstract: There is disclosed a system for identifying a source location of an electromagnetic signal having a known waveform. Radio receiving equipment located at three of more monitoring stations receives and demodulates a radio frequency signal from a common source. A time stamp generator applies a time stamp to each block of N digital data samples derived from the received radio frequency signal at each monitoring station. A GPS timing signal can be used to synchronize the time stamp generator in each monitoring station. Further, replica generating hardware and/or software at each monitoring station periodically synchronously generates a replica waveform. An autocorrelation processor at each monitoring station determines a time offset between an occurrence of the known waveform in the signal, and an occurrence of the replica waveform at each monitoring station.