Multiple triangulation analysis: application to determine the velocity of 2-D structures

Abstract. In order to avoid the ambiguity of the application of the Triangulation Method (multi-spacecraft timing method) to two-dimensional structures, another version of this method, the Multiple Triangulation Analysis (MTA) is used, to calculate the velocities of these structures based on 4-point measurements. We describe the principle of MTA and apply this approach to a real event observed by the Cluster constellation on 2 October 2003. The resulting velocity of the 2-D structure agrees with the ones obtained by some other methods fairly well. So we believe that MTA is a reliable version of the Triangulation Method for 2-D structures, and thus provides us a new way to describe their motion.