Distributed model reference control for synchronization of a vehicle platoon with limited output information and subject to periodical intermittent information

Vehicles involved in platoon formation may experience difficulties in obtaining full-state information that can be exchanged and used for controller synthesis. Therefore, a distributed controller based on a model reference and designed utilizing a cooperative observer is proposed for vehicle platoon synchronization. The proposed controller is composed of three main blocks, namely, the reference model, the cooperative observer and the main controller. The reference model is developed by using a homogeneous vehicle platoon that utilizes cooperative full-state information. The cooperative observer is a state estimator which is constructed based on the cooperative output estimation error. It provides state estimates to be used by the main controller. The main controller is constructed from a nominal control and a synchronization input. The nominal control has the main task of tracking the lead vehicle, while in order to reduce the synchronization error, the synchronization input is added by utilizing the cooperative disagreement error. Stability analysis is focused on the vehicle platoon when it is subjected to completely periodical intermittent information. The condition on the information rate is derived for guaranteeing the synchronization of the platoon. Numerical simulation of a vehicle platoon consisting of one leader and five followers is used to examine the performance of the controller.