Synthesis Method for Sensor Systems and UAVs in the Problem of Monitoring Lightning

The article presents the results of the development of a lightning monitoring method based on the synthesis of sensor systems and UAVs. A variant of the hardware-software model of the system for monitoring thunderstorm activity zones is presented. The integrated use of a space-time reference system based on navigation satellite technologies, a sensor system for determining the spatial characteristics of thunderstorm activity zones, as well as data exchange based on wireless technologies creates conditions for improving the safety of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles. The results of a natural experiment are presented. The thunderstorm detection range is at least 27 km, which exceeds the set restrictions of 10 km and 15 km to execute flights in accordance with the VFR and IFR rules, respectively. The resulting results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.