Model predictive control for intelligent speed adaptation in Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems

Intelligent vehicle highway systems (IVHS) consist of automated highway systems in combination with intelligent vehicles and roadside controllers. The intelligent vehicles can communicate with each other and with the roadside infrastructure. The vehicles are organized in platoons with short intraplatoon distances, and larger distances between platoons. Moreover, all vehicles are assumed to be automated, i.e., throttle, braking, and steering commands are determined by an automated on-board controller. In this paper we first propose a model predictive control (MPC) approach to determine appropriate speeds for the platoons. Next, we discuss which prediction models are suited to be used as an on-line traffic prediction model in MPC for IVHS. The proposed approach is then applied to a simple simulation example in which the aim is to minimize the total time all vehicles spend in the network by optimally assigning speeds to the platoons.