Lateral control of platoons of vehicles on highways: the autonomous following based approach

Automated driving of vehicles on highways may be accomplished by dividing the control problem in the longitudinal and lateral direction. In this paper, the problem of lateral control of vehicles operating in a platoon without the use of road infrastructure, that is, autonomous following, is considered. Firstly, the limitations of autonomous following without inter-vehicle communication are uncovered. Specifically, the influence of rear end off-tracking and look-ahead distance on the accuracy of lane following is illustrated. Next, the notion of string stability for a platoon is introduced. It is shown that the interconnected platoon without inter-vehicle communication theoretically can be string stable at the expense of poor performance. Finally, it is shown that, under certain circumstances, the addition of inter-vehicle communication eliminates the interconnection with the rest of the vehicles in the platoon, resulting in accurate lane following. The analytical results are verified by simulations and experiments.