Decentralized Control of High-Speed Vehicular Strings

The automatic control of a string of high-speed, densely-packed vehicles is studied in a unified approach. Various input structures for the control schemes and their stability are studied and compared. The optimal decentralized regulation theory developed in a previous paper is applied to seek the best feedback control gains for various input structures. Value of information is defined to evaluate the relative merit of these inputs. The results can be easily applied for on-board computer designs in developing new transportation technology such as “personal rapid transit” systems.