Preliminary Study on A Lightning Location Algorithm with Voronoi Diagram as the Constraint for Nonlinear Optimization

In this paper, we propose a lightning location algorithm with the Voronoi diagram as the constraint for nonlinear optimization. From the open literature, this is the first time the Voronoi diagram concept is introduced to address the lightning location problem. The Voronoi diagram is employed to identify the station closest to the source and determine a small region (Voronoi cell) that contained the source. Through such a step, the location of the source is dramatically narrowed down to a subregion within which the constraint nonlinear optimization method is then used to estimate the accurate location of the source. A simple simulation, assuming a distributed network and a single lightning source, is conducted to assess the algorithm. A comparison with the conventional algorithms suggests promising integration of the Voronoi diagram into the lightning location technique.