Effect of information delay on string stability of platoon of automated vehicles under typical information frameworks

The effect of the information delay, which was caused by the nature of the distance sensors and wireless communication systems, on the string stability of platoon of automated vehicles was studied. The longitudinal vehicle dynamics model was built by taking the information delay into consideration, and three typical information frameworks, i.e., leader-predecessor framework (LPF), multiple-predecessors framework (MPF) and predecessor-successor framework (PSF), were defined and their related spacing error dynamics models in frequency domain were proposed. The string stability of platoon of automated vehicles was analyzed for the LPF, MPF and PSF, respectively. Meanwhile, the related sufficient string stable conditions were also obtained. The results demonstrate that the string stability can be guaranteed for the LPF and PSF with considering the information delay, but the ranges of the control gains of the control laws are smaller than those without considering the information delay. For the MPF, the “weak” string stability, which can be guaranteed without considering the information delay, cannot be obtained with considering the information delay. The comparative simulations further demonstrate that the LPF shows better string stability, but the PSF shows better string scalable performance.