Longitudinal and lateral control system development for a platoon of vehicles

This paper presents a control algorithm for a platoon of vehicles. The longitudinal controller is composed of a headway controller and a velocity/acceleration controller. MMW radar is used to sense the range to the preceding vehicle for headway control. The velocity of the leading vehicle together with the headway distance to the preceding vehicle and its rate is used to derive the headway control laws without the need for headway information from other vehicles. It is shown that the suggested headway controller guarantees the string stability under certain conditions. The velocity/acceleration controller is designed by using a fuzzy-sliding mode control algorithm. On the other hand, an inductive wire is used to measure the lateral deviation and a fuzzy-like gain-scheduled PD controller tracks the inductive wire to keep the lateral deviation as small as possible. The performance of the suggested controller is illustrated by simulations and road tests in which vehicles follow one another at 10 meter spacings at a peak velocity of 80 kilometers per hour