Fuel efficiency‐oriented platooning control of connected nonlinear vehicles: A distributed economic MPC approach

This paper considers the fuel efficiency‐oriented platooning control problem of connected vehicles. We present a novel distributed economic model predictive control (EMPC) approach to solve the problem of the vehicle platoon subject to nonlinear dynamics and safety constraints. In order to improve fuel economy of the whole vehicle platoon, the fuel consumption criterion is used to design the distributed EMPC strategy for the platoon. Meanwhile, the car‐tracking performance is exploited to guarantee stability and string stability of the platoon. Then the fuel efficiency control problem of the platoon is formulated as a distributed dual‐layer economic optimal control problem, which is solved in a fashion of receding horizon. It is proved that the proposed strategy guarantees asymptotic stability and predecessor‐follower string stability as well as fuel economy of the whole platoon by minimizing the fuel consumption cost. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is highlighted by comparing its performance with that of the traditional distributed MPC strategy in numerical simulations.     

Resilient and Safe Platooning Control of Connected Automated Vehicles Against Intermittent Denial-of-Service Attacks

Connected automated vehicles (CAVs) serve as a promising enabler for future intelligent transportation systems because of their capabilities in improving traffic efficiency and driving safety, and reducing fuel consumption and vehicle emissions. A fundamental issue in CAVs is platooning control that empowers a convoy of CAVs to be cooperatively maneuvered with desired longitudinal spacings and identical velocities on roads. This paper addresses the issue of resilient and safe platooning control of CAVs subject to intermittent denial-of-service (DoS) attacks that disrupt vehicle-to-vehicle communications. First, a heterogeneous and uncertain vehicle longitudinal dynamic model is presented to accommodate a variety of uncertainties, including diverse vehicle masses and engine inertial delays, unknown and nonlinear resistance forces, and a dynamic platoon leader. Then, a resilient and safe distributed longitudinal platooning control law is constructed with an aim to preserve simultaneous individual vehicle stability, attack resilience, platoon safety and scalability. Furthermore, a numerically efficient offline design algorithm for determining the desired platoon control law is developed, under which the platoon resilience against DoS attacks can be maximized but the anticipated stability, safety and scalability requirements remain preserved. Finally, extensive numerical experiments are provided to substantiate the efficacy of the proposed platooning method.      

Wheeled Mobile Robots Control in a Linear Platoon

Future transportation systems will require a number of drastic measures, mostly to lower traffic jams and air pollution in urban areas. Automatically guided vehicles capable of driving in a platoon fashion will represent an important feature of such systems. Platooning of a group of automated wheeled mobile robots relying on relative sensor information only is addressed in this paper. Each vehicle in the platoon must precisely follow the path of the vehicle in front of it and maintain the desired safety distance to that same vehicle. Vehicles have only distance and azimuth information to the preceding vehicle where no inter-vehicle communication is available. Following vehicles determine their reference positions and orientations based on estimated paths of the vehicles in front of them. Vehicles in the platoon are then controlled to follow the estimated trajectories. Then presented platooning control strategies are experimentally validated by experiments on a group of small-sized mobile robots and on a Pioneer 3AT mobile robot. The results and robustness analysis show the proposed platooning approach applicability.     

Data-iteration cooperative adaptive cruise control of mixed heterogeneous vehicle platoons with unknown dynamic characteristics

This paper considers the cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) problem of mixed heterogeneous vehicle platoons composed of human-driven and CACC vehicles with unknown dynamic characteristics and an alternative to CACC for platooning of the heterogeneous vehicle platoon is presented. Adaptive dynamic programming is firstly used to learn the dynamic characteristics of acceleration of vehicles from the sampled data. Then the data-iteration optimal CACC controller is computed to ensure that each CACC vehicle can reach a desired inter-vehicle distance and desired common velocity with no prior knowledge of the dynamics of vehicles in the mixed platoon. Moreover, the string stability of the mixed vehicle platoon is derived by establishing some sufficient conditions on the acceleration transfer function of adjacent vehicles. Two simulation experiments of a six-vehicle mixed platoon are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed CACC method.     

Dynamic Event-Triggered Scheduling and Platooning Control Co-Design for Automated Vehicles Over Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

This paper deals with the co-design problem of event-triggered communication scheduling and platooning control over vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) subject to finite communication resource. First, a unified model is presented to describe the coordinated platoon behavior of leader-follower vehicles in the simultaneous presence of unknown external disturbances and an unknown leader control input. Under such a platoon model, the central aim is to achieve robust platoon formation tracking with desired inter-vehicle spacing and same velocities and accelerations guided by the leader, while attaining improved communication efficiency. Toward this aim, a novel bandwidth-aware dynamic event-triggered scheduling mechanism is developed. One salient feature of the scheduling mechanism is that the threshold parameter in the triggering law is dynamically adjusted over time based on both vehicular state variations and bandwidth status. Then, a sufficient condition for platoon control system stability and performance analysis as well as a co-design criterion of the admissible event-triggered platooning control law and the desired scheduling mechanism are derived. Finally, simulation results are provided to substantiate the effectiveness and merits of the proposed co-design approach for guaranteeing a trade-off between robust platooning control performance and communication efficiency.      

String stability for vehicular platoon control: Definitions and analysis methods

The platooning of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) is expected to have a transformative impact on road transportation, e.g, enhancing highway safety, improving traffic efficiency, and reducing fuel consumption. One critical task of platoon control is to achieve string stability, for which various models and methods had been proposed. However, different types of definitions and analysis methods for string stability were proposed over the years and were not thoroughly compared. To fill these gaps, this paper aims to clarify the relationship of ambiguous definitions and various analysis methods, providing a rigorous foundation for future studies. A series of equivalences are summarized and discussed. The pros and cons of different analysis methods and definitions are discussed, too. All these discussions provide insights for practical selection of analyzing methods for vehicle platoons.     

Event-driven intermittent control for vehicle platooning over vehicular ad-hoc networks

This article is concerned with the problem of vehicle platooning control over vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). Compared with the existing platooning control strategies, an event-driven intermittent control method is developed to reduce control costs and extend the operating life of controllers while ensuring the desired platooning performance. By establishing suitable boundary functions and Lyapunov function, the control input is determined according to the relationship among the trajectories of these functions. Thereafter, sufficient conditions for platooning control performance analysis are derived by a set of linear matrix inequalities. Wherein, the vehicle platooning based on intermittent control is obtained to maintain the desired inter-vehicle distance and a uniform speed in the platoon. Furthermore, a simple optimization algorithm is constructed to calculate the smallest upper bound on tracking errors. Finally, several simulations based on different topologies are provided to verify the validity of the proposed method.     

一种协作式车队控制的新方法

针对协作式车队机动过程中存在燃油或制动延时的情况,建立车辆与车队动力学模型,综合考虑本车与相邻前车间的局部信息及领头车的全局信息,提出协作车队纵向控制策略.从避免Slinky-Effects效应出发,得到车队队列稳定条件,根据Lyapunov-Razumikhin方法证明车队中单车稳定性,并将两者相结合共同确定燃油或制动延时界限.在此基础上,分析车间距稳态误差及车队抖动与碰撞的避免条件.最后通过数字仿真检验上述设计,仿真结果对比表明了所提出控制策略具有较好的控制效果.     

Centralized and decentralized distributed control of longitudinal vehicular platoons with non‐uniform communication topology

In this paper, the distributed control of a longitudinal platoon of vehicles with non‐uniform communication topology is studied. In the case of non‐uniform communication topology, some eigenvalues of the network's matrix may be complex which complicates the stability analysis of the platoon. Most previous studies on vehicular platooning focus mainly on uniform topologies such as uni‐directional, bi‐directional, and multi predecessors following. Since all eigenvalues of these topologies are real, the stability analysis can be performed in a straightforward manner. A third‐order linear differential model is employed to describe the upper‐level dynamics of each vehicle. The 3 N‐order closed‐loop dynamics of the platoon are decoupled to individual third‐order dynamics by presenting a new approach. Two new centralized and decentralized control protocols are introduced to perform the stability analysis of the closed‐loop dynamics. A constant time headway strategy is employed to adjust the inter‐vehicle spacing. Simulation results with different scenarios are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.     

智能交通系统车道保持纵横向耦合控制

考虑车辆纵横向运动之间的相互影响,采用位置预瞄和固定车辆间距跟随策略,对基于一列车队的自动化公路系统车道保持纵横向耦合控制进行了研究.利用车载前后双位置传感器检测车辆位置偏差,基于车辆纵横向动力学耦合模型,推导了基于预瞄的车道保持控制系统数学模型;采用非奇异的终端滑模控制技术,设计了车道保持纵横向耦合控制规律.通过构造李雅普诺夫函数,结合相平面方法,分析了控制系统的有限时间收敛性.采用6车辆编队,通过计算机仿真,对文中设计的控制规律进行了验证.仿真结果显示,车队中每个被控车辆在纵向上跟随期望状态的同时能够实现对期望车道轨迹的理想跟踪,跟踪误差精度不超过0.05 m.     

Guaranteeing safety for heavy duty vehicle platooning: Safe set computations and experimental evaluations

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding a safety criteria between neighboring heavy duty vehicles traveling in a platoon. We present a possible framework for analyzing safety aspects of heavy duty vehicle platooning. A nonlinear underlying dynamical model is utilized, where the states of two neighboring vehicles are conveyed through radar information and wireless communication. Numerical safe sets are derived through the framework, under a worst-case scenario, and the minimum safe spacing is studied for heterogenous platoons. Real life experimental results are presented in an attempt to validate the theoretical results in practice. The findings show that a minimum relative distance of 1.2 m at maximum legal velocity on Swedish highways can be maintained for two identical vehicles without endangering a collision. The main conclusion is that the relative distance utilized in commercial applications today can be reduced significantly with a suitable automatic control system.     

含时延的车辆队列事件触发一致性控制研究

为应对通信过程中的传输时延以及车辆间连续信息交互带来的信息冗余、资源浪费,提出一种基于事件触发机制的车辆队列一致性策略,以保证车辆队列能够稳定运行;为此,构建一个考虑车辆间的跟驰行为和通信时延的三阶异质车辆队列动力学模型,提出一种基于事件触发的一致性车辆队列控制器的设计方法;在此基础上,利用Lyapunov稳定性理论和代数图论,对车辆队列的稳定性进行分析,得出了使车辆队列稳定的事件触发条件和通信时延的上界;在MATLAB平台上进行仿真实验,验证了所提车辆队列控制方法的有效性。     

基于事件触发机制的自主车辆队列协同控制

为应对通信过程存在的扰动以及减少自主车辆队列控制中的信息冗余、资源浪费,提出了一种基于事件触发机制的自主车辆队列协同控制算法,保证自主车辆队列的稳定运行。首先,针对有向通信拓扑结构下的自主车辆队列设计基于事件触发机制的协同控制算法,即使存在扰动约束,自主车辆也可以在该算法的控制下有效跟随领航车辆的速度,且与相邻车辆保持期望的安全距离。其次,通过设计Lyapunov函数以及分析Zeno行为,证明算法的有效性和安全性。最后,通过MATLAB仿真验证了控制算法的正确性。     

基于运输成本的高速公路车辆协同调度与速度规划

针对路网中大规模的货运车辆,给出一种新的综合油耗成本与时间成本的车辆协同调度方案,以便在最大化节约运输成本的前提下解决车队的协调优化问题.首先,建立基于油耗成本和时间成本的车辆运输成本模型,通过微调部分车辆的速度与路径,循环计算任意两辆车组队行驶的运输成本节约率,将符合组队条件的车辆构造为车辆组队协调图;然后,采用一种基于中心聚类划分的算法将车辆的组队问题转化为聚类求解问题,求解出节约运输成本最大化的领头车,使其在公共路段组成车队行驶;最后,考虑道路坡度及速度限制等条件,采用基于空间采样的动态规划方法对合并车辆的速度进行优化,从而进一步降低车辆的运输成本.仿真结果验证了所提出的优化方案及求解思路的可行性和有效性.     

自主车辆队列控制系统的稳定性分析

车辆队列控制可提升交通容量与安全性、降低燃油消耗,但车辆通信过程中时延不可避免;为此,针对含通信时延的车辆队列系统,开展内部稳定性和队列稳定性分析研究;首先,利用矩阵相似变换,将高维车辆队列闭环控制系统降维拆分为若干等价的低维子系统,极大地降低了内部稳定性分析的解析难度和运算量;在此基础上,利用直接法求解了车辆队列子系统特征方程的临界虚根,从而推导了准确的时延边界,获得了车辆队列系统内部稳定的充要条件;然后,为了保证干扰沿车辆队列向后传播时不扩散,通过频域分析车辆间误差传递函数,给出了系统的队列稳定性条件,以及时延和控制器参数的指导原则;最后,通过仿真验证了所提稳定性分析方法的有效性。     

基于信息一致性的自主车辆变车距队列控制}%页眉设置

针对目前自主车辆队列控制中采用的间距策略存在间距调节灵活性不足、道路利用率欠佳等问题,提出一种基于信息一致性的自主车辆变车距队列控制方法.首先,结合车速与车辆制动时间的动态关系,设计一种变时间间隔策略.在此基础上,基于信息一致性理论,提出一种车间距可随车速自适应变化的自主车辆队列控制算法.仿真结果表明,所提算法不仅可以实现自主车辆的变车距队列控制,且车间距离的调节具有较好的灵活性,尤其在低速行驶时,可有效减少道路占用量,提高道路利用率.     

马尔科夫链通信拓扑下的车辆队列最优能耗控制

针对马尔科夫链通信拓扑下的车辆队列控制问题,综合考虑车辆队列的非线性动力学模型和行驶能耗优化目标,提出一种基于分布式状态观测器的车辆队列能耗优化控制方法.由于在马尔科夫链通信拓扑下,部分车辆获取的邻居车辆信息具有动态切换特性,严重影响了车辆队列控制算法的有效性和稳定性.鉴于此,首先,设计一种用于估计领航车辆状态信息的状态观测器,有效避免通讯拓扑切换对队列控制系统造成的干扰;然后,结合车辆的非线性动力学模型与队列优化目标,构建一种基于指数折扣函数的车辆队列能耗优化框架,将车辆队列的能耗优化问题转化为Riccati方程的求解问题,进而得到车辆队列的最优能耗控制输入,在此基础上,通过构造动态通信拓扑下的李雅普诺夫函数,分析车辆队列控制系统的稳定性条件,即只要每个可能的通信拓扑均需包含一个以领航车辆为根的有向生成树,就可使得该车辆队列控制系统满足稳定性和队列稳定性;最后,通过数值仿真验证所提出控制算法的可行性和有效性.     

传感器测量误差下的非线性车辆队列控制

传感器测量误差对车辆队列的有效控制与稳定性造成了较大的影响;通常情况下,大多研究成果将传感器测量误差设定为分布规律已知的随机数列(如高斯分布,泊松分布等),以便采用特定的数理方法消除误差影响;然而对于控制系统中仅满足有界条件的测量误差,仍需开展进一步的深入研究;针对此类现状,以非线性车辆队列控制为研究对象,综合考虑车载传感器的有界测量误差与车辆之间的有向通信拓扑,设计一种基于滑模的车辆队列控制方法;该方法能有效解决有界传感器测量误差下的车辆队列控制问题;此外,在控制过程中利用预设性能控制(PPC,prescribed performance control)理论,进一步约束车辆队列跟踪误差,确保车辆队列的队列稳定性;最后,通过数值仿真的方式验证本文所提出控制算法的有效性和可行性。     

Experimental evaluation of decentralized cooperative cruise control for heavy-duty vehicle platooning

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding decentralized controllers for heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) platooning by establishing empiric results for a qualitative verification of a control design methodology. We present a linear quadratic control framework for the design of a high-level cooperative platooning controller suitable for modern HDVs. A nonlinear low-level dynamical model is utilized, where realistic response delays in certain modes of operation are considered. The controller performance is evaluated through numerical and experimental studies. It is concluded that the proposed controller behaves well in the sense that experiments show that it allows for short time headways to achieve fuel efficiency, without compromising safety. Simulation results indicate that the model mimics real life behavior. Experiment results show that the dynamic behavior of the platooning vehicles depends strongly on the gear switching logic, which is confirmed by the simulation model. Both simulation and experiment results show that the third vehicle never displays a bigger undershoot than its preceding vehicle. The spacing errors stay bounded within 6.8 m in the simulation results and 7.2 m in the experiment results for varying transient responses. Furthermore, a minimum spacing of −0.6 m and −1.9 m during braking is observed in simulations and experiments, respectively. The results indicate that HDV platooning can be conducted at close spacings with standardized sensors and control units that are already present on commercial HDVs today.     

基于深度强化学习的网联车辆队列纵向控制

针对车辆队列中多目标控制优化问题,研究基于强化学习的车辆队列控制方法.控制器输入为队列各车辆状态信息以及车辆间状态误差,输出为基于车辆纵向动力学的期望加速度,实现在V2X通信下的队列单车稳定行驶和队列稳定行驶.根据队列行驶场景以及采用的间距策略、通信拓扑结构等特性,建立队列马尔科夫决策过程(Markov decision process,MDP)模型.同时根据队列多输入-多输出高维样本特性,引入优先经验回放策略,提高算法收敛效率.为贴近实际车辆队列行驶工况,仿真基于PreScan构建多自由度燃油车动力学模型,联合Matlab/ Simulink搭建仿真环境,同时引入噪声对队列控制器中动作网络和评价网络进行训练.仿真结果表明基于强化学习的车辆队列控制燃油消耗更低,且控制器实时性更高,对车辆的控制更为平滑.