Consensus Based Control Algorithm for Nonlinear Vehicle Platoons in the Presence of Time Delay

The platoon control problem for nonlinear vehicles in the presence of time delay is investigated in this paper, where both constant time delay and time-varying delay cases are considered. A linearized third-order vehicle dynamic model is firstly derived by deploying the exact feedback linearization technique and the vehicle platoon control problem is converted into a consensus-seeking problem. Then, a consensus based vehicle platoon control algorithm with time delay is proposed, which drives vehicles to form an equally spaced platoon with the same velocity. By deploying the Lyapunov-Razumikhin theorem, the upper bound of time delay for vehicle platoon with constant time delay is derived and the sufficient conditions that guarantee the stability of the vehicle platoon are obtained. Meanwhile, the sufficient conditions that ensure the stability of vehicle platoon with time-varying delay are acquired via the Lyapunov-Krasovskii theorem. Numerical demonstrations verify the feasibility and correctness of the theoretical results.