Synchronization of Heterogeneous Vehicle Platoons using Distributed Model Reference Adaptive Control

This paper addresses the problem of heterogenous vehicle platoons, where each follower has a different nominal model and is subjected to uncertainty in the inertial time lag and control effectiveness. Distributed model reference adaptive control (DMRAC) is utilized to achieve synchronization. Each follower vehicle employs a heterogenous reference model and a nominal controller, along with an additional adaptive term to ensure that the follower may track the reference model despite uncertainties. The conditions on the coupling gain and adaptation law for each follower to ensure stability are derived. It is shown that the proposed controller guarantees the stability of the heterogenous vehicle platoon, which implies the synchronization of followers’ state to the leader. Numerical simulation validates the efficacy of the proposed controller. Moreover, the performance and characteristics of DMRAC are analyzed and compared to conventional control schemes.