Adaptive switching method for Adaptive Cruise Control

We present an Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) architecture which is focused on solving repetitive switching issues between two modes of ACC, speed control and distance control. A cascaded controller structure has been used. First controller (upper) includes two modes: a speed controller (PI) and a distance controller (time-gap). Outputs of these controllers are acceleration reference signals. The second controller (lower) is responsible of providing the desired acceleration by controlling throttle. The switching problem occurs in most algorithms between two modes of the upper controller. In the proposed method, additional to the normal switching logic which is checking the distance with the leading vehicle, a set of logical comparisons have been used to prevent repetitive mode changing at the exact desired distance.