Nonlinear adaptive cruise control of vehicular platoonsNonlinear adaptive cruise control of vehicular platoons Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2024-06-272023enThe paper deals with the design of nonlinear adaptive cruise controllers for vehicular platoons operating on an open road or a ring road. The constructed feedback controllers are nonlinear functions of the distance between successive vehicles and their speeds. It is shown that the proposed novel controllers guarantee safety (collision avoidance), speed positivity, bounded acceleration, speed limits by explicitly characterising the set of allowable inputs and by leveraging barrier function techniques. Moreover, we guarantee global asymptotic stability of the platoon to the desired configuration, as well as string stability. Certain macroscopic properties are also investigated. The main challenges stem from the fact that all previous objectives must be satisfied simultaneously and the fact that the control systems studied do not evolve in a finite-dimensional linear space but rather on specific sets. The efficiency of the nonlinear adaptive cruise controllers is demonstrated by means of numerical examples.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme/ ERC Grant Agreement n. [833915], project TrafficFluid.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/International Journal of Control961147-169Karafyllis_et_al_Int. J. Control_2023_manuscript.pdfChania [Greece]Library of TUC2024-06-25application/pdf1.0 MBfree Karafyllis Iason Καραφυλλης Ιασων Theodosis Dionysios Θεοδοσης-Παλιμερης Διονυσιος Papageorgiou Markos Παπαγεωργιου Μαρκος Informa Adaptive cruise control String stability Vehicle platoons Autonomous vehicles