Fig. 1

Illustration of the exploration procedure. In step I, agents (visualized in red) are introduced into an unknown environment and perform environmental and distance measurements for mapping and localization, respectively. The agents are carried by the fluid in the environment. Then, the agents are extracted from the environment, and their data are used by a fusion center (step II) to compute the agents’ trajectories (illustrated for two agents). The steps executed by the fusion center for this purpose are as follows: (a) resolve the transmit ambiguities, e.g., with the presented algorithms, and (b) perform positioning using classical localization algorithms. In step III, the environmental measurements and estimated trajectories are used to compute, e.g., the temperature profile of the environment