Property of Disturbance Suppression for Bidirectional Multiple-Vehicle Following Vehicular Platoon

Abstract

This work aims to investigate the sensitivity to disturbance for the bidirectional multiple-vehicle following (BDM) V2V vehicular platoon. A disturbance term is introduced into the control input, and a closed-loop equation about the spacing error is derived. The sensitivity of error propagation to disturbance is defined based on the error transfer function matrix, and the sensitivities to external disturbance and the motion of the leading vehicle have been analyzed in the frequency domain and validated by model simulations. The affecting factors, including communication topology, control gains, and weights for acceleration communication, have been analyzed. It is revealed that the communication topology plays a significant role in reducing the sensitivities of error propagation to disturbance, and the effects on the sensitivity to external disturbance and the motion of the leading vehicle are roughly opposite. The spacing control gain plays a more important role in reducing the sensitivity compared with the speed following control gain, especially for the sensitivity to external disturbance. More weight should be distributed to vehicles that are relatively nearer to the current vehicle for the purpose of reducing the sensitivities.