Combined Longitudinal and Lateral Control of a Platoon of Vehicles

In this paper, we consider the problem of combined longitudinal and lateral control of a platoon of non-identical vehicles on a curved lane of a highway. Based on nonlinear models of vehicles´ combined longitudinal and lateral dynamics, we propose nonlinear control laws for a platoon of vehicles accelerating on a curved lane of highway. The implementation issues regarding the needed sensors, estimators, guidance system, and communication link are discussed. Simulation results show that the proposed control laws perform well, for roads with suitably large radius of curvature, under nominal operation.