Network Control of a Platoon of Vehicles with Communication Limitations: a gain-schedule approach

In vehicular platoons, Information Flow Topology (IFT) has its own unique and major effect on stability of the system. By investigating the current studies on the importance of the information circulation through a platoon's network and its effect on the closed-loop stability of the platoon, this article presents a solution using a gain-schedule controller to handle the communication problems in contrasting IFTs such as delays in sensors to controllers and controllers to actuators channels. It has been shown that how the response of the platoon system suffers from time delays in the presence of conventional LQR controllers and how a novel gain-schedule technique can improve the whole performance of the system dealing with such communication time delays. The provided simulation results of a practical example of such a platoon shows effectiveness of the proposed method.