Distributed model predictive control of vehicle platoons with switching communication topologies

This paper considers the cooperative control problem of heterogeneous nonlinear vehicle platooning systems with switching communication topologies and proposes the distributed model predictive control strategy with guaranteed stability and string stability of the vehicle platoon. The time-related graph function is firstly constructed for the switching process of the dynamic communication topologies of the vehicle platoon. Then the average cooperative cost function is formulated using the neighbor vehicle state information and induced into the local receding horizon optimization control problem. Moreover, the sufficient conditions with respect to the weighted matrix and the value function are established to ensure the internal stability and the string stability of the closed-loop system of the vehicle platoon with switching communication topologies by combining the concept of the average dwell-time and the Lyapunov's stability theory of switching systems. Finally, the two groups of comparison simulations on some representative traffic scenarios are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.