Robust Adaptive Control of Heterogeneous Vehicle Platoons in the Presence of Network Disconnections With a Novel String Stability Guarantee

The objective of this paper is to propose a reliable control solution that addresses the issue of communication disconnections in a heterogeneous vehicle platoon. For each vehicle in the platoon, predecessor-leader following (PLF) communication is selected. In the event of a communication failure, the vehicle transitions to the predecessor-following (PF) topology until communication with the leader is reestablished. To address this issue, a controller has been developed with the objective of adapting to the current communication topology on each vehicle. Event-triggering is implemented to reduce the amount of control orders given to the throttle/brake actuator pedals on each vehicle. Constant time spacing is selected for vehicle separation. A novel method is proposed to ensure string stability of the platoon during the controller design phase. Closed-loop stability of the proposed controlled vehicle platoon is guaranteed under Lyapunov criterion. Robustness against external disturbances and sensor measurement errors is guaranteed under $\mathscr {H}_\infty$ criterion. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed platoon control methodology can enhance road safety in the event of network disconnections. In the most unfavorable circumstances, the separation error is reduced by 40% in comparison to model predictive control techniques and by 73% in comparison to the intelligent driver model.