The Development and Application of the Automated Field Mill at ground

Abstract

There is a potential difference between the upper atmosphere and the earth's surface, and this potential difference forms an atmospheric background electric field. The ground electric field varies not only due to the variation of the fair-weather electric field but also driven by the thunderstorm system and the seismic activities in the lithosphere. Therefore, the monitoring on the ground electric field can not only have the values on the science, but also the high potential on the applications of the disaster prevention.
This work focuses on the development of a home-made electric field mill. The new design of the electronics and processing system of the electric field meter is greatly miniaturized with low power consumption and light weight. Furthermore, the measurement data can be delivered out with the assistance of the telecommunication network, therefore this electric field mill can be deployed and works for a long time independently without extra power and communication lines. After the electric field mill is fabricated and tested, it has been placed in the electric field cage for the calibration with the simulation by SIMION.
In three long-term field experiments, the signatures of the end of storm oscillations and Carnegie curves were observed.

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Bing-Chih Chen (Supervisor)