An improved topology model for two-vehicle look-ahead and rear-vehicle convoy control

This paper analyzed the conventional one-vehicle look-ahead convoy with the view to improve the overall operation of the system. A vehicle was first modelled from first principle taking the effect of aerodynamic drag into consideration to mitigate the effects of disturbance. The proposed vehicle model was used to develop the improved topology of two-vehicle look-ahead and rear-vehicle convoy. To maximize the operating region of the convoy system, constant headway time (CHT) policy was utilized for the inter-vehicular spacing. Homogeneous vehicle convoy was assumed and it was compared with the conventional one-vehicle look-ahead to ascertain the improvement achieved. It was observed that the proposed model provides 5 m of inter-vehicular spacing with no chattering over the period of 80 s. The control vehicle's speed depends on the neighboring vehicles speeds with an improvement in reduction on acceleration and jerk of 0. 0213 ms
⁻²
and 0.02109 ms
⁻³
respectively.