Data-driven control without using mathematical models is a promising research direction for urban traffic control due to the massive amounts of traffic data generated every day. This article proposes a novel distributed model-free adaptive predictive control (D-MFAPC) approach for multiregion urban traffic networks. More specifically, the traffic dynamics of the network regions are first transformed into MFAPC data models, and then, the derived MFAPC data models instead of mathematical traffic models serve as the prediction models in the distributed control design. The formulated control problem is finally solved with an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)based approach. The simulation results for the traffic network of Linfen, Shanxi, China, show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.
Index Terms-Data-driven control, distributed model predictive control (DMPC), macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD), model-free adaptive predictive control (MFAPC), urban traffic network control.
I. INTRODUCTIONT RAFFIC congestion is a severe problem in urban traffic networks due to the rapid growth of vehicle numbers, and how to deal with traffic congestion problems using the existing traffic infrastructure is still a highly relevant topic. Network-wide traffic control is an excellent way to deal with urban traffic congestion.Network-wide traffic control optimizes the signal settings of all intersections simultaneously aiming to obtain the globally optimal performance of the entire network. Several approaches for network-wide urban traffic control have been proposed, in which many control and optimization theories are utilized. Some commercial traffic control systems, such as MAXBAND [1] and TRANSYT [2], have been implemented in many cities for a long time. For the traffic-responsive urban control (TUC) strategy [3] and its extended versions [4], [5], a linear quadratic regulator is utilized to balance the traffic flows within the network. To better cope with the fluctuations Manuscript