Longitudinal spacing control of vehicles in a platoon for stable and increased traffic flow

Vehicle platoon systems are a promising approach for new transportation systems because of their innovative capabilities. A basic problem in platoon systems is the control of the inter-vehicle spacing. In this paper, a new nonlinear longitudinal spacing control of vehicles in a platoon is proposed, which takes into account both vehicle characteristics and road conditions. It ensures the string stability of a string of vehicles, traffic flow stability and in comparison with the common constant time-gap spacing control policy increases the capacity of the traffic flow.