Experimental Application of Hybrid Fractional-Order Adaptive Cruise Control at Low Speed

This brief deals with the design and experimental application of a hybrid fractional adaptive cruise control (ACC) at low speeds. First, an improved fractional-order cruise control (CC) is presented for a commercial Citroën C3 prototype-which has automatic driving capabilities-at low speeds, which considers a hybrid model of the vehicle. The quadratic stability of the system is proved using a frequency domain method. Second, ACC maneuvers are implemented with two different distance policies using two cooperating vehicles-one manual, the leader, and the other, automatic-also at very low speeds. In these maneuvers, the objective is to maintain a desired interdistance between the leader and follower vehicles, i.e., to perform a distance control-with a proportional differential (PD) controller in this case-in which the previously designed fractional-order CC is used for the speed control. Simulation and experimental results, obtained in a real circuit, are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies.