Hierarchical Distributed MPC for Longitudinal and Lateral Vehicle Platoon Control with Collision Avoidance

This paper proposes a hierarchical distributed model predictive control (MPC) method for vehicle platoon control in both longitudinal and lateral directions. In the upper layer, a novel path-planning module and a trajectory-fusion module are utilized to compute a smooth reference trajectory for each follower. In the lower layer, the longitudinal and lateral distributed model predictive controllers are decoupled to control the velocity and steering respectively. To ensure safety and reduce the computation burden, the constraints to avoid collision are reformulated by using the strong duality theory. A simulation is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm in maintaining platoon formation and ensuring the safety of the platoon.