Distributed Vehicular Platoon Control with Heterogeneous Communication Delays

Due to its capability of improving fuel economy and traffic efficiency, platooning has become a hot research topic in recent years. Yet platoon internal stability under heterogeneous communication delays is still not fully discussed. This paper proposes an LMI based robust control algorithm for vehicular platoons with generic communication topologies subjected to heterogeneous delays. Inverse vehicle model compensation is utilized to linearize platoon dynamics. Graph theory is employed to depict communication topologies. Together with a linear feedback controller, we yield a high dimensional linear model of the closed-loop platoon dynamics. A Riccati inequality based algorithm is then proposed to calculate a stabilizing control gain, which can be solved in an LMI manner. An upper bound of the heterogeneous communication delay is provided, below which the internal stability of the platoon is theoretically guaranteed. Finally, the proposed theory is validated through numerical simulations.