Guidance and control of a platoon of vehicles adapted to changing environment conditions

This paper describes the decentralized longitudinal control of a ten-vehicle platoon. An adapted time-headway distance approach is adopted, i.e., that each vehicle has to respect a "time-to-contact" with its preceding vehicle. The adaptation is made relatively to the vehicle dynamics and the road conditions. A two-level longitudinal controller is developed using the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and feedback linearization methods. String stability analysis is discussed resulting in a definition for the adopted control strategy. A pentic polynomial guidance algorithm is used to limit the acceleration when a vehicle is reaching a platoon. Simulations showing the leader velocity variation for normal, icy and snowy roads and the pentic guidance approach are presented.