Method and device for steering a seismic vessel, on the basis of boundaries of binning coverage zones

A non-transitory computer-readable carrier medium storing a computer program comprising program code instructions which, when executed on a computer or a processor, allow to implement a method for steering a seismic vessel associated with a sail line and a current preplot line, said seismic vessel towing at least one acoustic linear antenna comprising receivers, said receivers receiving signals generated by at least one source and reflected by subsurface's layers at a plurality of reflexion points, said method comprising:

• a) computing distances di, iε{1 . . . n}, from n reflexion points, included in said plurality of reflexion points, to a boundary of an already obtained binning coverage zone associated with an already used previous preplot line;
• b) computing a distance D, from said n reflexion points to n target reflexion points, as a function of said distances di;
• and
• c) providing steering information comprising or based on the distance D to a navigation system or to an operator of a navigation system, to alter the course of the seismic vessel.

A device for steering a seismic vessel associated with a sail line and a current preplot line, said seismic vessel towing at least one acoustic linear antenna comprising receivers, said receivers receiving signals generated by at least one source and reflected by subsurface's layers at a plurality of reflexion points, said device being configured to:

• compute distances di, iε{1 . . . n}, from n reflexion points, included in said plurality of reflexion points, to a boundary of an already obtained binning coverage zone associated with an already used previous preplot line;
• compute a distance D, from said n reflexion points to n target reflexion points, as a function of said distances di;
• and
• provide steering information comprising or based on the distance D to a navigation system or to an operator of a navigation system, to alter the course of the seismic vessel.