Robust Adaptive Consensus of Decentralized Large-Scale Bi-Directional Vehicular Platoons With Only Relative Position Measurement

This paper presents a new approach to solve the problem of internal and string stability of decentralized large-scale bi-directional vehicular platoons (DLBVPs) under uncertain dynamics with constant spacing strategy. It is assumed that each following vehicle can only measure the relative position with respect to its predecessor and subsequent vehicles. To estimate the uncertain dynamics of each following vehicle and unknown leader acceleration, a new decentralized robust adaptive consensus protocol is introduced which by using only relative position measurement, guarantees internal and string stability. It will be shown that the control gains are tuned without requiring any knowledge about the platoon size (number of following vehicles) and consequently, the controller is robust against size changing due to common maneuvers. By using Lyapunov theorem, we will prove that under this approach, the position and velocity tracking errors of each vehicle converge to zero asymptotically. Furthermore, it is shown that the adaptation laws have the main role in assuring string stability of DLBVPs with constant spacing strategy. Several simulation and practical results will depict the merits of this algorithm.

I. Introduction

In Recent decades, vehicle platooning (VP) as a beneficial method to achieve the ideas of automated highway systems has been investigated [1], [2]. By practical implementing of VP, the road capacity will improve and the traffic congestion will mitigate, while the fuel economy will preserve and the air pollution will decrease [3], [4]. Therefore, numerous techniques are established to control design of longitudinal motion of vehicular networks [5]–[7]. The most important objective in VP is organizing movement of vehicles with an identical velocity as well as secure inter-vehicle distances [8].