Towards Streamer-Free Marine Seismic Surveys: The Role of Formation Control Systems

Abstract: We explore the applicability of recent advances in formation control theory and robust network analysis to the problem of designing streamer-free marine seismic surveys. To this end, we carry out a theoretical and numerical feasibility study to highlight the power and utility of this methodology, providing an explicit formula for the control law required to continually maneuver the data acquisition formation, and specifically addressing the robustness issue related to potential sensor failures.