Decentralized control of autonomous platoon under networked communication effect

The important issue of control of autonomous platoons on highways with networked communication effect is considered. Firstly, an overlapping hybrid model is established for the platoon's longitudinal movement, in which the constraints induced by communication network (e. g., time-delay, quantization and packet-dropout) are given full considerations and involved in the model for the first time. Then, a hierarchical platoon controller design framework is established, comprising a feedback linearization controller at the first layer and a guaranteed cost controller at the second layer. By reducing the nonlinear system to a linear model using the top layer feedback linearization controller, a decentralized guaranteed cost control algorithm is presented which has solution to quantization, delay and dropout on the platoon. Under this controller, the platoon can be stable. Simulations results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.