US 12,320,949 B2
Advanced warning for solar flares from photosphere image analysis
Robert Allen Makin, III, Kalamazoo, MI (US); and Steven Michael Durbin, Kalamazoo, MI (US)
Assigned to Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI (US)
Filed by THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY, Kalamazoo, MI (US)
Filed on May 3, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/735,729.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/192,709, filed on May 25, 2021.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/183,192, filed on May 3, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2022/0365243 A1, Nov. 17, 2022
Int. Cl. G01W 1/10 (2006.01); G06V 10/25 (2022.01); G06V 10/50 (2022.01); G06V 20/40 (2022.01)
CPC G01W 1/10 (2013.01) [G06V 10/25 (2022.01); G06V 10/507 (2022.01); G06V 20/46 (2022.01)] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of protecting solar-weather vulnerable devices and systems by predicting disruptive solar events, the method comprising:
repeatedly extracting numerical values corresponding to an order parameter, wherein said order parameter is S or S2, from a plurality of sets of solar atmosphere data measured over time, wherein the plurality of sets of solar atmosphere data comprise images of the Sun, and the numerical values corresponding to order parameter are extracted from a series of images of the Sun, wherein
at least some of the images of the Sun include bright regions and dark regions and wherein:
extracting the numerical values corresponding to order parameter comprises thresholding the images of the Sun to determine an area of the bright regions,
selecting regions of interest of the images of the Sun, and
determining a squared order parameter value (S2) by calculating a ratio of the area of the bright regions to a total area of the regions of interest of each image of the Sun; and
predicting a solar event if a change in the extracted numerical values satisfies prediction criteria, wherein the prediction criteria comprise a predefined increase in numerical values corresponding to the order parameter over a pre-defined interval of time.