Adaptive Switched Control for Connected Vehicle Platoon With Unknown Input Delays

Area of Science:

• Control Systems Engineering
• Automotive Engineering
• Robotics

Background:

• Connected vehicle platoons offer potential benefits in traffic efficiency and safety.
• Unknown input delays in vehicle communication networks pose significant challenges to platoon stability.
• Existing control strategies often struggle with real-time adaptation to dynamic delay variations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a decentralized control law for connected vehicle platoons with unknown input delays.
• To ensure stable platoon operation, maintaining uniform speed and safe inter-vehicle distances.
• To propose a novel delay-adaptive predictor for real-time estimation of unknown input delays.

Main Methods:

• A decentralized control law utilizing only onboard sensors was designed.
• A novel switching-type delay-adaptive predictor was developed to estimate unknown input delays.
• The platoon control architecture employed a one-vehicle look-ahead topology and a constant time headway (CTH) policy.

Main Results:

• The proposed control law, combined with the delay-adaptive predictor, guarantees the stability of successive vehicles in the platoon.
• The system effectively manages time-varying spacing requirements inherent in the CTH policy.
• Stability analysis confirmed the effectiveness of the control strategy for platoons with unknown input delays.

Conclusions:

• The developed decentralized control strategy effectively stabilizes connected vehicle platoons despite unknown input delays.
• The switching-type delay-adaptive predictor is crucial for real-time compensation of communication uncertainties.
• The findings demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed method for enhancing autonomous driving safety and efficiency.