Adaptive Control of Bidirectional Platoons With Actuator Saturation and Discontinuous Trajectory Tracking

Journal article, 2025

With the rapid development of V2V and V2I communication technologies and autonomous control systems, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are gaining increasing popularity. Small-spacing AV platoons offer advantages such as enhanced road capacity and energy efficiency. However, in non-ideal communication environments, packet loss can cause partial loss of trajectory information, resulting in discontinuous tracking. This may induce significant transients and trigger actuator saturation, aggravating traffic disturbances. In bidirectional platoons, where control signals propagate in both directions, the impact of such disruptions is further amplified due to mutual vehicle interdependence. This paper addresses these challenges by considering asymmetric actuator saturation, discontinuous tracking trajectories, and non-zero initial spacing errors in bidirectional AV platoons. A continuous control law is designed based on coupled sliding mode control, and Lyapunov stability theory is employed to ensure both trajectory tracking stability and string stability. Our contributions include the development of a modified spacing policy that not only eliminates large transients and string instability caused by non-zero initial spacing errors but also ensures rapid convergence to the desired spacing within a finite and adjustable time frame. Furthermore, a variant sigmoid function is introduced to actively smooth the discontinuous tracking trajectories, thereby reducing communication demands and suppressing transients. An auxiliary system is also designed to manage actuator saturation effectively, ensuring provable stability and fully leveraging actuator capabilities. Results demonstrate that the control strategy achieves both trajectory tracking stability and string stability, while also enabling rapid tracking performance and maintaining small spacing errors by making full use of actuator potential.