In this paper, we propose a distributed elastic behaviour fora deformable chain-like formation of small autonomousunderwater vehicles with the task of forming specialshapes which have been explicitly defined or are defined bysome iso-contour of an environmental concentration field.In the latter case, the formation has to move in such a wayas to meet certain formation parameters as well as adapt tothe iso-line. We base our controller on our previous models(for manually controlled end points) using general curveevolution theory but will also propose appropriate motionsfor the end robots of an open chain.

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