Platoon Control of Unmanned Tracked Vehicles Based on Distributed Model Prediction

Considering that the current platoon control algorithms applied in unmanned tracked vehicles have poor reliability and stability. There are also few research employing the model predictive control in this field of the tracked vehicles. To accomplish the platoon control of unmanned tracked vehicles, this paper proposed a Distributed Model Predictive Control (DMPC) method for platoon control. Firstly, a platoon control framework of tracked vehicles is constructed including vehicles interaction layer and vehicle nodes layer. We build a communication network topology model based on graph theory in the interaction layer and a instantaneous steering center tracked vehicle model in the node layer. Secondly, a tracked vehicle multi-objective optimization controller based DMPC is designed. The controller solves the trajectory tracking and platoon control problems uniformly. The effectiveness, stability and reliability of the controller are verified by the straight-line changeable speed platoon control experiment and circular path platoon control experiment.