For active intervention tasks in underwater environments, the use of autonomous vehicles is just now emerging as an active area of research. During operation, for various reasons, the robot might find itself on a collision course with an obstacle in its environment. In this paper, a switching Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) strategy is proposed to safely handle collisions for an Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator System (UVMS). When avoiding the collision is impossible, the control algorithm takes advantage of the manipulator, using it to push against the obstacle, and deflect away from the collision. Virtual experiments are performed to demonstrate the algorithm's capability to successfully detect collisions and either avoid them, or use the manipulator to handle them appropriately without damaging sensitive areas of the vehicle.

翻译：针对水下环境中的主动干预任务，自主车辆的应用正逐渐成为一个活跃的研究领域。在作业过程中，由于各种原因，机器人可能面临与环境中的障碍物发生碰撞的风险。本文提出了一种切换非线性模型预测控制（NMPC）策略，用于安全处理水下车辆-机械臂系统（UVMS）的碰撞问题。当无法避免碰撞时，控制算法利用机械臂的优势，使其抵推障碍物从而偏转脱离碰撞轨迹。通过虚拟实验验证了该算法能够成功检测碰撞，并实现有效规避或利用机械臂进行恰当处理，同时避免对车辆敏感区域造成损伤。