Decoupled H _∞ control of automated vehicular platoons with complex interaction topologies

Abstract

The platooning of automated vehicles has potential to significantly benefit road traffic, while its robust performance is less investigated especially considering increasing complexity of interaction topologies. This study presents a decoupled H ∞ control method for automated vehicular platoon to comprehensively compromise multiple performances. The platoon control system is first decomposed into an uncertain part and a diagonal nominal system through the linear transformation, which is motivated by the eigenvalue decomposition of information topology. Based on this almost decoupled system, a distributed H ∞ controller is presented, which can balance the performances of robustness and disturbance attenuation ability. Moreover, a numerical method is given to solve and optimise this controller by using linear matrix inequality approach. Several comparative hardware-in-loop tests of different communication topologies and controllers have been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method.

Distributed sliding mode control for formation of multiple nonlinear AVs coupled by uncertain topology

“…From 16, it is found that the states of different AVs are coupled together by the information connections. To model various connection topologies among AVs in a consistent way, the graph theory is used to describe it as  =  +  ∈ ℝ N×N [14,15].  describes the connection between followers and is defined as And  represents the directional connection from leader to followers:…”

“…To deal with such uncertainties, Gao et al [14] further presented a robust control method for heterogeneous formations. This synthesis method has been extended to general, but eigenvalue decomposition known topologies in [15] and even with communication delays [16].…”

Distributed H∞ Control of AVs Interacting by Uncertain and Switching Topology in a Platoon

“…The heterogeneous feedback structure has advantages over homogeneous one in some performances such as string stability, but only special topologies such as biodirectional can be dealt with [15]. To provide a synthesis strategy applicable for a variety of topologies and simplify the theoretical analysis, the identical state feedback control logic is used here [18,20,33]:…”

“…From (18), it can be found that the closed dynamics of platoon is influenced by both the state feedback and interaction topology. If the interaction topology is determined in advance and holds during running, many control theories can be used [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Unfortunately, both the dimension and structure of the topological matrix are uncertain in a real environment, which poses a great challenge to synthesize and analyze the platoon control system.…”

“…Gao et al further presented a robust control method for heterogeneous platoons interacted by undirected topologies [19]. This synthesis method has been extended to general, but eigenvalue decomposition known topologies in [20]. The problem of actuar saturation and velocity absent is considered by using the consensus theory [21].…”