Distributed Double-Layer Control for Coordination of Multi-Platoons approaching road restriction in the presence of IoV communication delays

Internet-of-Vehicle (IoV) has become a hot topic in the last years due to its significant benefits in transportation systems in terms of quality, costs and traffic management capability. Indeed, accurate and real-time information acquisition and diffusion are required to reach an efficient traffic management system according to the smart city paradigm. In this context, this paper provides a novel IoV-based distributed double layer control architecture to address the coordination control problem of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) multiple platoons negotiating the access to a road section restriction in the presence of heterogeneous communication time-varying delays. To this aim, leveraging the IoV paradigm and the equivalent virtual formation concept, we propose a novel distributed diffusive longitudinal protocol and a distributed lateral potential-function-based control strategy, both of them able to cope with communication delays and ensuring the multi-platoon coordination in finite time, i.e. before accessing the road section restrictions, so to avoid vehicles collisions. The finite-time stability of both the cooperative controllers are analytically proved by exploiting the Lyapunov-Krasovskii theory and the derived delay-dependent stability conditions, expressed as a set of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs), allows the proper tuning of the controllers gains. Numerical analysis confirms the theoretical derivation and discloses the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed cooperative multi-platoon control in ensuring the safe crossing of the road section restriction in finite-time.