Cooperative adaptive bidirectional control of a train platoon for efficient utility and string stability**Project supported by the Beijing Jiaotong University Research Program, China (Grant No. RCS2014ZT18), the Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities, China (Grant No. 2015JBZ007), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61233001, 61322307, and 61304196).

Abstract

This paper proposes cooperative adaptive control schemes for a train platoon to improve efficient utility and guarantee string stability. The control schemes are developed based on a bidirectional strategy, i.e., the information of proximal (preceding and following) trains is used in the controller design. Based on available proximal information (prox-info) of location, speed, and acceleration, a direct adaptive control is designed to maintain the tracking interval at the minimum safe distance. Based on available prox-info of location, an observer-based adaptive control is designed to achieve the same target, which alleviates the requirements of equipped sensors to measure prox-info of speed and acceleration. The developed schemes are capable of on-line estimating of the unknown system parameters and stabilizing the closed-loop system, the string stability of train platoon is guaranteed on the basis of Lyapunov stability theorem. Numerical simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control laws.