Min-max model predictive vehicle platooning with communication delay

Vehicle platooning gains its popularity in improving traffic capacity, safety and fuel saving. The key requirements of an effective platooning strategy include keeping a safe intervehicle space, ensuring string stability and satisfying vehicular constraints. To meet these requirements, this paper proposes a distributed min-max model predictive control (MPC). One technical contribution is that the proposed MPC can guarantee input-to-state predecessor-follower string stability, in the presence of vehicle-to-vehicle communication delays and realistic constraints. Another technical contribution is the development of a new concept of input-to-state stability margin for analyzing the platooning system that is nonlinear under MPC. The proposed MPC is applicable to both homogeneous and heterogeneous platoons because only the point-mass vehicle model is needed. The proposed MPC also has reduced communication burden because each vehicle in the platoon only transmits its current acceleration to the adjacent follower. The design efficacy is verified by simulating a platoon composed of five vehicles under different uncertainties and communication delays.