Bending Virtual Spring-Damper: A Solution to Improve Local Platoon Control

Abstract

Abstract. This article presents a local control approach to linear vehicle platooning. Linear platoon systems are sets of vehicles that use local or global perception capabilities to form a train configuration, without any hard grip element. Public transportation is beginning to interest in platoon systems as a technological base to conceive new services. The main problem related to platoon system's control corresponds with maintaining inter-vehicle distance. In literature, the platoon's geometry control problem is treated according to two approaches: global or local vehicle control. This paper focuses on a local approach which does not require sophisticated sensors and/or costly road equipment. This local control approach intends to obtain very good global matching to arbitrary trajectories, only from local perception which consists in measuring the vectorial distance between a given vehicle and its predecessor. The behavior of each platoon vehicle is determined from a physics inspired multi agent interaction model based on a virtual spring-damper. Furthermore, stability, platoon safety properties are checked using physics and mathematical proofs. Finally, simulation is used to measure trajectory error and inter-vehicle distance evolution.

EVLibSim: A tool for the simulation of electric vehicles’ charging stations using the EVLib library

“…In a slightly different domain, VIVUS (Virtual Intelligent Vehicle Urban Simulator) [15] simulates vehicles and sensors, taking into consideration their physical structure, while applying artificial intelligence algorithms such as platoon solutions [13] and obstacle avoidance techniques [16]. The urban vehicle simulator is based on two main engines: one for physics simulation and one for 3D immersion in a topological environment.…”

“…Then the availability of charger and energy to start the charging immediately is checked (lines 9-12). If both charger and energy exist, then the price to pay for the charging p j is calculated and the event state is set to accepted (lines [13][14][15][16][17]. If no charger and/or no energy is available for immediate charging, then the scheduling of the event for later charging is considered.…”

Vehicle platoon and obstacle avoidance: a reactive agent approach

“…The bending spring-dumper model has been chosen for two reasons: damping allows to avoid longitudinal oscillations and bending introduces flexion forces that allow better trajectory matching as described in [15].…”

“…Special attention has been devoted to linear configurations [15,16]: trains of vehicles that displace together following the same line or curve. Autonomous vehicle navigation in presence of obstacles has motivated intense research activity [17,18].…”

“…Various control strategies have been proposed in literature [9], including behaviour based methods [10,11], virtual structure techniques [12] and follow-the-leader schemes [13,14]. Special attention has been devoted to linear configurations [15,16]: trains of vehicles that displace together following the same line or curve. Autonomous vehicle navigation in presence of obstacles has motivated intense research activity [17,18].…”