Robust Distributed Control Protocols for Large Vehicular Platoons with Prescribed Transient and Steady State Performance

In this paper, we study the longitudinal control problem for a platoon of vehicles with unknown nonlinear dynamics under both the predecessor-following and the bidirectional control architectures. The proposed control protocols are fully distributed in the sense that each vehicle utilizes feedback from its relative position with respect to its preceding and following vehicles as well as its own velocity, which can all be easily obtained by onboard sensors. Moreover, no previous knowledge of model nonlinearities/disturbances is incorporated in the control design, enhancing in that way the robustness of the overall closed loop system against model imperfections. Additionally, certain designer-specified performance functions determine the transient and steady-state response, thus preventing connectivity breaks due to sensor limitations as well as inter-vehicular collisions. Finally, extensive simulation studies and a real-time experiment conducted with mobile robots clarify the proposed control protocols and verify their effectiveness.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, accepte

Liu, C., Xia, Z., & Patton, R. J. (2024). Distributed Fault-Tolerant Consensus Control of Vehicle Platoon Systems With DoS Attacks. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology

Vehicle platoon systems are regarded as autonomous vehicles in the platooning pattern, in which vehicles drive in sequence and maintain the desired inter-vehicle spacing. This paper investigates the platoon control problem of vehicle platoon dynamics under cyber-physical threats through the distributed fault-tolerant consensus control protocol. Complicated sensor and actuator faults in the physical layer and aperiodic denial-of-service (DoS) attacks in the cyber layer are modeled, respectively. Decentralized fault-estimation unknown input observers and event-triggered distributed anti-DoS-attack fault-tolerant consensus controllers are devised in a co-designed framework, thus maintaining not only the tolerance and resilience of platoon consensus errors and estimation errors but also the secure vehicle avoidance spacing by virtue of attack frequency and average dwelling time indicators. Simulations and experiments validate the distributed control algorithm in the pernicious short-cycle and long-cycle DoS attack scenarios

A Systematic Survey of Control Techniques and Applications: From Autonomous Vehicles to Connected and Automated Vehicles

Vehicle control is one of the most critical challenges in autonomous vehicles (AVs) and connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), and it is paramount in vehicle safety, passenger comfort, transportation efficiency, and energy saving. This survey attempts to provide a comprehensive and thorough overview of the current state of vehicle control technology, focusing on the evolution from vehicle state estimation and trajectory tracking control in AVs at the microscopic level to collaborative control in CAVs at the macroscopic level. First, this review starts with vehicle key state estimation, specifically vehicle sideslip angle, which is the most pivotal state for vehicle trajectory control, to discuss representative approaches. Then, we present symbolic vehicle trajectory tracking control approaches for AVs. On top of that, we further review the collaborative control frameworks for CAVs and corresponding applications. Finally, this survey concludes with a discussion of future research directions and the challenges. This survey aims to provide a contextualized and in-depth look at state of the art in vehicle control for AVs and CAVs, identifying critical areas of focus and pointing out the potential areas for further exploration

Distributed Antittack Fault-Tolerant Tracking Control for Vehicle Platoon Systems Under Cyber-Physical Threats

Vehicle platoon systems are considered as automatous vehicles in a platoon-based driving pattern in which a following vehicle follows the preceding vehicle and maintains the desired vehicle spacing. This article investigates the leader-following tracking issue of vehicle platoon systems under cyber-physical threats with the distributed antiattack fault-tolerant tracking control strategy. In this study, vehicle platoon systems, complicated actuator faults in physical layer, and connectivity-mixed attacks in the cyber layer are modeled, respectively. Decentralized fault-estimation unknown input observer and distributed antiattack fault-tolerant tracking control designs are developed in an integrated control framework to guarantee the robust and resilient tracking property of estimation errors and platoon tracking errors as well as the reliable intervehicle spacing by virtue of attack activation rate and attack frequency metrics. Simulations validate the proposed distributed antiattack fault-tolerant tracking control algorithm in pernicious cyber-physical threatened scenarios

Data-Driven Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control for Unknown Nonlinear Vehicle Platoons

This paper studies cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) for vehicle platoons with consideration of the unknown nonlinear vehicle dynamics that are normally ignored in the literature. A unified data-driven CACC design is proposed for platoons of pure automated vehicles (AVs) or of mixed AVs and human-driven vehicles (HVs). The CACC leverages online-collected sufficient data samples of vehicle accelerations, spacing and relative velocities. The data-driven control design is formulated as a semidefinite program (SDP) that can be solved efficiently using off-the-shelf solvers. The efficacy and advantage of the proposed CACC are demonstrated through a comparison with the classic adaptive cruise control (ACC) method on a platoon of pure AVs and a mixed platoon under a representative aggressive driving profile.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; This paper is under submissio