Simultaneous observations of optical and electrical signals and pattern recognition in lightning flashes classification

The optical and electrical signals of lightning discharges were measured simultaneously by using the wide-band electric field instrument and the optical ripple detector at Conghua city Guangdong province in summer, 2006. The observation data were analyzed statistically in this paper. The results show that the lightning optical signal is always delayed from the electric signal on onset and peak time, and the optical pulse rises more slowly to the peak and its pulse-width is broader. Using the back propagation artificial neural networks methods, the pattern recognition in lighting flashes chassification was further investigated by optical and electric time series. The results are up to the standard except in-cloud flash ones.