Platooning of Car-Like Vehicles in Urban Environments: Longitudinal Control Considering Actuator Dynamics, Time Delays, and Limited Communication Capabilities

Abstract

This brief proposes a longitudinal control framework for platooning in an urban environment. The targeted application is to redistribute vehicles involved in car-sharing systems, where only the leader vehicle is human-driven. We propose a platoon model and control law considering actuator dynamics. This control relies on a hybrid information flow topology (IFT), where the leader broadcasts its state, but each follower only measures the position of its predecessor. A consensus-based control law incorporates the effect of the network/sensor time delay and the variable velocity of the leader. Conditions for the platoon internal and string stability are given. Experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the framework in simulation and real experiments with three commercial cars.