Stability Analysis of a Predecessor-Following Platoon of Vehicles With Two Time Delays

Abstract

The problem of controlling a platoon of vehicles moving in one dimension is considered so that they all follow a lead vehicle with constant spacing between successive vehicles. The stability and the string stability of a platoon of vehicles with two independent and uncertain delays, one in the inter-vehicle distance and the other in the relative velocity information channels, are considered. The main objectives of this paper are: (1) using a simplifying factorization procedure and deploying the cluster treatment of characteristic roots (CTCR) paradigm to obtain exact stability boundaries in the domain of the delays, and (2) for the purpose of disturbance attenuation, the string stability analysis is examined. Finally, a simulation example of multiple vehicle platoon control is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.