Differential Game-Based Optimal Control of Autonomous Vehicle Convoy

Group control of connected and autonomous vehicles on automated highways is challenging for the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and the automated driving systems (ADS). This paper investigates the differential game-based approach to autonomous convoy control with the aim of deployment on automated highways. Under the noncooperative differential games, the coupled vehicles make their decisions independently while their states are interdependent. The receding horizon Nash equilibrium of the linear-quadratic differential game provides the convoy a distributed state-feedback control strategy. This approach suffers a fundamental issue that neither a Nash equilibrium’s existence nor the uniqueness is guaranteed. We convert the individual dynamics-based differential game to a relative dynamics-based optimal control problem that carries all the features of the differential game. The existence of a unique Nash control under the differential game corresponds to a unique solution to the optimal control problem. The latter is shown, as well as the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the presented convey control scheme and how it well suits automated highway driving scenarios.