Reference model based sliding mode control of a platoon of vehicles

In this paper, a reference model based sliding mode controller for the task of platoon control is developed. Among its advantages are: maintaining a safe distance between the vehicles, rapidly achieving the maximum allowable speed, and arriving at the exact desired position in minimum time. The approach has no limits on the platoon size, moreover only local information is used. Each vehicle only needs to monitor the distance and relative speed to its predecessor. This makes the solution easily scalable. The properties are demonstrated analytically and verified in numerical simulations.