Disturbance propagation in large interconnected systems

Focuses on control of vehicle strings and the theoretical issues arising from this problem. The key result is that a control structure where each vehicle uses only information about its predecessor is fundamentally sensitive to disturbances. Specifically, small disturbances acting on one vehicle can propagate and have a large effect on another vehicle. A similar, though less general, result is derived for a control structure where each vehicle looks at both neighbors.