Shape estimate of a streamer of hydrophones towed by an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle*

:The paper deals with the problem of estimating the shape of a streamer of hydrophones for acoustic geoseismic survey when towed by an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). The considered problem arises in the framework of a H2020 European Project, named WiMUST, aimed at using a team of AUVs, each one towing a streamer of hydrophones, to perform geoseismic survey missions that are traditionally performed using streamers towed by a single manned surface vessel. The replacement of the towing system of the vessel with a team of AUVs introduces several issues in the localization of the hydrophones, needed to allow the processing of the acoustic data, since they are no more on the sea surface. In this paper we want to study the solvability of the streamer shape estimation problem depending on the possibly available measurements and information that can be collected via the hydrophones, the AUVs on board sensors, and relying on acoustic communication.