A New Control Approach for Platoon Operations during Vehicle Exit/Entry

A new platoon control concept is introduced, called Back Control, in which the controller of a given vehicle utilizes state information from the lead, preceding, and following vehicles, as well as the vehicle itself. Simulations are carried out on two non-steady state platoon operations - vehicle exit and vehicle entry from a platoon. A previously developed longitudinal controller is utilized as a reference to the proposed Back controller and a ride quality index is used to assess passenger comfort in these simulations. It is shown that the Back controller has advantages over the reference controller in these two operations and that it is therefore worth examining as a candidate controller of vehicular platoons, especially in non-nominal operations.     

纯电动商用车异质队列的多目标控制

队列行驶的研究能有效解决商用车货运安全、能耗浪费和环境污染等问题,但现有研究多基于单一跟车目标控制的匀质队列,这在货运场景中无法达到很好的控制效果。本文中构造了纯电动异质商用车队列,为其设计了分布式非线性模型预测控制器。根据道路环境信息和车辆跟车、安全、舒适和节能等特性,分别建立了领航车和跟随车的控制器模型,实现异质队列的多目标控制。为验证所提出控制方法的有效性,由5辆动力学特性相异的商用车组成队列,并搭建了控制仿真平台进行Trucksim/Simulink联合仿真。结果表明,本文中提出的控制算法能有效实现异质商用车队列的多目标控制,与PID定速巡航控制相比,能耗可降低5.3%以上。     

Robust yaw stability control for electric vehicles based on active front steering control through a steer-by-wire system

A robust yaw stability control design based on active front steering control is proposed for in-wheel-motored electric vehicles with a Steer-by-Wire (SbW) system. The proposed control system consists of an inner-loop controller (referred to in this paper as the steering angle-disturbance observer (SA-DOB), which rejects an input steering disturbance by feeding a compensation steering angle) and an outer-loop tracking controller (i.e., a PI-type tracking controller) to achieve control performance and stability. Because the model uncertainties, which include unmodeled high frequency dynamics and parameter variations, occur in a wide range of driving situations, a robust control design method is applied to the control system to simultaneously guarantee robust stability and robust performance of the control system. The proposed control algorithm was implemented in a CaSim model, which was designed to describe actual in-wheel-motored electric vehicles. The control performances of the proposed yaw stability control system are verified through computer simulations and experimental results using an experimental electric vehicle.     

Design and Evaluation of Robust Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control Systems in Parameter Space

This paper is on the design of cooperative adaptive cruise control systems for automated driving of platoons of vehicles in the longitudinal direction. Longitudinal models of vehicles with simple dynamics, an uncertain first order time constant and vehicle to vehicle communication with a communication delay are used in the vehicle modeling. A robust parameter space approach is developed and applied to the design of the cooperative adaptive cruise control system. D-stability is chosen as the robust performance goal and the feedback PD controller is designed in controller parameter space to achieve this D-stability goal for a range of possible longitudinal dynamics time constants and different values of time gap. Preceding vehicle acceleration is sent to the ego vehicle using vehicle to vehicle communication and a feedforward controller is used in this inter-vehicle loop to improve performance. Simulation results of an eight vehicle platoon of heterogeneous vehicles are presented and evaluated to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design method. Also, the proposed method is compared with a benchmark controller and the feedback only controller. Time gap regulation and string stability are used to assess performance and the effect of the vehicle to vehicle communication frequency on control system performance is also investigated.     

Decoupled self-tuning PI controller for an idling stop system applied to scooters

This paper is aimed to propose a decoupled self-tuning proportional plus integral (PI) controller with simple law for an idling stop system applied to scooters. An integrated starter generator (ISG) of the idling stop system is designed with a high efficiency permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The PMSM used as an ISG must have a high torque characteristic to ensure that the engine can be accelerated up to firing speed. A conventional and useful control algorithm named PI control is unable to handle motor current very well for dynamic load, parametric variation, and external disturbance, especially in a vehicle application. Therefore, a robust algorithm for current control in an ISG is proposed. The decoupled selftuning PI controller based on the Lyapunov stability theorem is utilized to guarantee the control performance. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm. Experimental results show that the engine of a 150 cm3 scooter can be cranked to reach firing speed by a ISG within 0.1?0.2 second. The proposed method is simple, robust, as well as stable for idling stop system, and can be effectively implemented.     

Safe Platooning in Automated Highway Systems Part II: Velocity Tracking Controller

This paper presents the design of a velocity tracking controller for safe vehicle maneuvering in Automated Highway Systems (AHS) in which traffic is organized into platoons of closely spaced vehicles. The notion of safety is related to the absence of collisions that exceed a given relative velocity threshold. In a companion paper, state dependent safety regions for the platoons are designed in such a way that, whenever the state of a platoon is inside these safety regions, it is guaranteed that platoon maneuvering will be safe and follow the behavior prescribed by the finite state machines that control vehicles maneuvers. Velocity profiles inside these safety regions are derived for all the single lane maneuvers and a nonlinear velocity tracking controller is designed to track these profiles. This controller attempts to complete the maneuvers with comfort in minimum time, whenever safety is not compromised. The control schemes presented in this paper were implemented and tested using AHS simulation software.     

车-车协同下无人驾驶车辆的换道汇入控制方法

多车协同驾驶是智能车路系统领域的研究热点之一,可有效降低道路交通控制管理的复杂程度,减少环境污染的同时保障道路交通安全。基于多车协同驾驶控制结构,提出了一种无人驾驶车辆换道汇入的驾驶模型及策略,系统分析了多车协同运行状态的稳定条件。在综合分析无人驾驶车辆换道汇入的协作准则、安全性评估后,基于高阶多项式方法,结合车辆运行特性,通过引入乘坐舒适性的指标函数,设计得到无人驾驶车辆换道汇入的有效运动轨迹。通过研究汇入车辆与车队中汇入点前、后各车辆的运动关系,详细分析车辆发生碰撞的类型和影响因素,给出避免碰撞的条件准则,从而确保无人驾驶车辆汇入过程中多车行驶的安全性和稳定性。基于车辆运动学建立车辆位置误差模型,结合系统大范围渐进稳定的条件,选取线速度和角速度作为输入,应用李雅普诺夫稳定性理论和Backstepping非线性控制算法,设计了无人驾驶车辆换道汇入后的路径跟踪控制器。仿真试验和实车试验结果表明：所设计的换道汇入路径是可行、安全的,控制器具有良好的跟踪效果,纵向和横向的距离误差在15 cm以内,方向偏差的相对误差在10%以内。研究结果为智能车路系统中的多车状态变迁与协同驾驶研究提供了参考,可服务于未来道路交通安全设计和评价。     

基于模型匹配方法的汽车主动避撞下位控制系统

针对汽车主动避撞系统下位控制的鲁棒性要求，应用模型匹配控制理论，设计了汽车主动避撞下位系统的控材器；并解决了下位控制系统鲁棒稳定性和鲁棒跟随性难以得到兼顾的问题；通过实车试验结果对此控制器性能进行了验证；获得了较好的效果。     

Robust control for four-wheel-independent-steering electric vehicle with steer-by-wire system

A four-wheel-independent-steering (4WIS) electric vehicle (EV) with steer-by-wire (SBW) system is proposed in this paper. The fast terminal sliding mode controller (FTSMC) is designed for the SBW system to suppress external disturbances. Taking unstructured and structured uncertainties into consideration, a robust controller is designed for the 4WIS EV utilizing μ synthesis approach and the controller order reduction is implemented based on Hankel-Norm approximation. Since sideslip angle is the feedback signal of robust controller and it is hard to measure, the extended Kalman filter (EKF) is employed to estimate sideslip angle. To evaluate the vehicle performance with the designed control system, step and sinusoidal steering maneuvers are simulated and analyzed. Simulation results show that the designed control system have good tracking ability, strong robust stability and good robust performance to improve vehicle stability and handing performance.     

Automatic path-tracking controller of a four-wheel steering vehicle

The present paper proposes an automatic path-tracking controller of a four-wheel steering (4WS) vehicle based on the sliding mode control theory. The controller has an advantage in that the front- and rear-wheel steering can be decoupled at the front and rear control points, which are defined as centres of percussion with respect to the rear and front wheels, respectively. Numerical simulations using a 27-degree-of-freedom vehicle model demonstrated the following characteristics: (1) the automatic 4WS controller has a more stable and more precise path-tracking capability than the 2WS controller, and (2) the automatic 4WS controller has robust stability against system uncertainties such as cornering power perturbation, path radius fluctuation, and cross-wind disturbance.     

A vehicle stability control strategy with adaptive neural network sliding mode theory based on system uncertainty approximation

Modelling uncertainty, parameter variation and unknown external disturbance are the major concerns in the development of an advanced controller for vehicle stability at the limits of handling. Sliding mode control (SMC) method has proved to be robust against parameter variation and unknown external disturbance with satisfactory tracking performance. But modelling uncertainty, such as errors caused in model simplification, is inevitable in model-based controller design, resulting in lowered control quality. The adaptive radial basis function network (ARBFN) can effectively improve the control performance against large system uncertainty by learning to approximate arbitrary nonlinear functions and ensure the global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. In this paper, a novel vehicle dynamics stability control strategy is proposed using the adaptive radial basis function network sliding mode control (ARBFN-SMC) to learn system uncertainty and eliminate its adverse effects. This strategy adopts a hierarchical control structure which consists of reference model layer, yaw moment control layer, braking torque allocation layer and executive layer. Co-simulation using MATLAB/Simulink and AMESim is conducted on a verified 15-DOF nonlinear vehicle system model with the integrated-electro-hydraulic brake system (I-EHB) actuator in a Sine With Dwell manoeuvre. The simulation results show that ARBFN-SMC scheme exhibits superior stability and tracking performance in different running conditions compared with SMC scheme.     

New energy recovery H∞ robust controller for electric bicycles

The electric controller is one of the most crucial components in an electric bicycle. The overall performance of the whole system heavily depends on the properties of the controller. The authors use the robust control theory to design a new H_∞ robust controller for the closed speed-current dual-loop driving and braking system. The designed controller also incorporates the driving and energy recovery braking circuit. Therefore, it has energy recovery ability, which coverts the kinetic energy wasted in braking into electric energy to recharge the battery. This prolongs the driving distance per battery charge. The simulations and experiments show that the new H_∞ robust controller out-performs the traditional PID controller in many respects including stability, error, responding speed and driving distance per battery charge.     

四轮独立驱动电动车自适应巡航滑模控制

为实现四轮独立驱动电动汽车的自适应巡航功能,采用基于趋近律的滑模控制理论设计了自适应巡航控制系统。上位控制器以实际车距与期望车距的偏差作为输入,采用滑模控制律获得主车期望加速度,然后将期望加速度作为下位控制器的输入,计算出电机期望转矩,用于实现自适应巡航控制。在CarSim中建立电动汽车整车模型,并与Simulink进行联合仿真。仿真结果表明,在前车匀速、加速、减速等直线行驶工况以及曲率较大的弯道行驶工况下,提出的自适应巡航控制方法均能够使主车具有良好的跟踪能力。     

Safety Oriented Maneuvers for IVHS

The IVHS architecture of the California PATH program organizes traffic into platoons of closely spaced vehicles. Platoons are formed and broken up by two longitudinal control maneuvers, the merge and the split. A third longitudinal maneuver, decelerate to change lane, allows a platoon switching from one lane to another to enter its new lane at a safe spacing and speed. The maneuvers, particularly the merge, can be potentially hazardous. In a merge, the cars in the trail platoon are moving faster than those in the lead platoon, while the gap separating the two platoons is smaller than usual. A sudden deceleration by the lead platoon could cause a high-speed collision. If the relative velocities of the merging platoons can be constrained so that they are guaranteed never to collide at a high relative velocity, the merge can be considered safe. A maximum safe velocity for the trail platoon can be found for any given spacing and lead-platoon velocity. This paper presents a merge maneuver in which the velocity of the trail platoon never exceeds the maximum safe velocity. The controller switches among several feedback control laws that keep the velocity of the trail platoon inside a safe region and within comfort limits on jerk and acceleration, under normal circumstances. This merge maneuver can be considered to be the fastest merge strategy mat does not violate bounds on safety and comfort. The controller is also more robust to changes in the vehicles' acceleration capability than those that use a desired open-loop trajectory

The control approach used for the merge maneuver can be applied to the other maneuvers to ensure that they never result in a collision. The switching controllers for the split and decelerate to change lane maneuvers that are safe and yield a more comfortable ride than those that track a timed trajectory are also presented.     

车辆防抱系统鲁棒控制的研究

本文讨论了防抱制动系统鲁棒控制器设计问题，采用鲁棒和性能加权，系统有效地抗干扰和参数变化，使控制器有效地适应不同的路况及制动工况，与ＰＩＤ算法进行了比较，模拟的结果证实了该控制器的优良品质。     

Robust hierarchical controller with conditional integrator based on small gain theorem for reference trajectory tracking of autonomous vehicles

ABSTRACT

A robust trajectory tracking controller is designed for autonomous vehicles based on a hierarchical architecture to make the autonomous vehicle track a given reference trajectory. The controller consists of two sub controllers: kinematic controller and dynamic controller. Based on the kinematics of tracking reference trajectory, a desired yaw rate is calculated by kinematic controller to make the lateral deviation global asymptotic stable. Then, steering wheel angle is calculated by a vehicle dynamic controller to make the vehicle yaw rate converge to the desired value and make the vehicle dynamic stable. Conditional integration method is used in the sub controllers. This method guarantees global asymptotic stability of tracking reference values and considers the uncertainty of parameters and constraints of desired yaw rate and actuators. Then based on small-gain theorem, the condition of the finite-gain L stability is given to the hierarchical controller to ensure the interconnected sub systems stable and prevent the amplification of system disturbance. Finally, the effectiveness and robustness of the controller are validated by real vehicle experiments.     

Fuzzy Logic Traction Controllers and their Effect on Longitudinal Vehicle Platoon Systems

This paper presents two fuzzy logic traction controllers and investigates their effect on longitudinal platoon systems. A fuzzy logic approach is appealing for traction control because of the nonlinearity and time-varying uncertainty involved in traction control systems

The fuzzy logic traction controllers we present regulate brake torque to control wheel slip, which is the normalized difference between wheel and vehicle speed. One fuzzy controller estimates the peak slip corresponding to the maximum tire-road adhesion coefficient and regulates wheel slip at the peak slip. The controller is attractive because of its ability to maximize acceleration and deceleration regardless of road condition. However, we find through simulations the controller's performance degrades in the presence of time-varying uncertainties. The other fuzzy logic controller regulates wheel slip at any desired value. Through simulations we find the controller robust against changing road conditions and uncertainties. The target slip is predetermined and not necessarily the peak slip for all road conditions. If the target slip is set low, stable acceleration and deceleration is guaranteed, regardless of road condition

We also study the effect of traction control on longitudinal vehicle platoon systems using simulations. The simulations include acceleration and deceleration maneuvers on an icy road. The results indicate traction control may substantially improve longitudinal platoon performance, especially when icy road conditions exist.     

基于非线性模型预测控制的车辆纵向队列协调控制

本文中针对基于分层控制结构的车辆队列上、下层控制缺少联系的问题,提出了车辆队列跟驰与个体车辆动力学稳定性协调控制的思路,其基本思想是在保证队列中个体车辆安全稳定行驶的同时,尽可能实现队列跟驰控制的目标。基于非线性模型预测控制(nonlinear model predictive control,NMPC)方法设计了车辆队列协调控制方案,设计了包括跟驰间距误差、跟驰速度误差以及车速与车轮圆周速度差3个子目标的优化目标函数,将队列跟驰与车辆动力学稳定性的协调控制转化为约束优化控制问题;基于序列二次规划(sequential quadratic programming,SQP)方法进行求解,得到车辆前、后轴的制动/驱动力矩来实现上层决策输出的期望跟驰加速度。基于由3车辆组成的非线性队列模型对控制方案进行了仿真分析,结果表明,所提出的基于NMPC的车辆队列协调控制策略可以在大范围操纵工况下,在保证车辆安全稳定行驶的基础上实现队列的跟驰控制。     

气体燃料发动机空燃比的H_∞控制

在充分考虑外部干扰和系统模型不确定性的情况下,将混合灵敏度H∞设计引入多点喷射燃气发动机空燃比控制中,将发动机空燃比控制转化为H∞标准设计。仿真结果表明,H∞控制器具有良好的跟踪性、鲁棒稳定性和抗干扰能力。     

基于滑模控制的时滞自动车辆跟随系统数学模型

基于非线性车辆动力学方程和固定车辆间距跟随策略,对具有时间滞后的自动化公路系统车辆纵向跟随控制问题进行了研究。在假定车队中的每个被控制车辆能够接收到车队领头车辆以及该车前面一个车辆的位移、速度和加速度信息的情况下,应用滑模变结构控制方法,通过对滑模运动方程的分析,得到了关于车辆间距误差的车辆纵向跟随系统的数学模型。该模型属于一类具有时间滞后的无限维非线性关联大系统。在具有时间滞后的车辆纵向跟随控制器设计中,利用该类非线性关联大系统的稳定性判定条件来设计控制参数,可确保车辆纵向跟随控制系统的稳定性。