Minimum sensor second-order sliding mode longitudinal control of passenger vehicles

In this paper, a minimum sensor variable structure control strategy for cruise and tracking longitudinal control of vehicles has been proposed. It relies on the generation of "second-order" sliding regimes, i.e., sliding modes characterized by an identically null derivative of the sliding variable. Because of the lack of measurements, the use of suitably designed observers is exploited in the paper. On the whole, the proposed strategy is designed so as to guarantee a bounded jerk and to avoid too frequent changes between the use of the accelerator and the brake. The control strategy is robust with respect to matched bounded parameters variations, and uncertainties.