We design a control strategy for platoons of identical vehicles.
It is assumed that each vehicle measures the distance with its immediate forward neighbor. The lead vehicle in the platoon only receives information on the position of the last vehicle in the platoon. The resulting behavior of the system is a platoon of vehicles moving at a constant velocity with constant distance between pairs of consecutive vehicles. For a class of identical controllers this solution is asymptotically stable for sufficiently small coupling strength.
The concept of string stability of a platoon is discussed and applied to the proposed interconnection. Simulations show the system is well-behaved with respect to string stability. To improve the behavior, integral action is added between the first and last vehicle of the platoon. The resulting behavior is determined and its stability properties are discussed
