A performance-centered design method for adaptive cruise control system

The adaptive cruise control (ACC) system that can take into account safety andriding comfort has attracted widespread attention. The challenges lie in designing an optimal car-following system with some predefined performance constraints based on the nonlinear dynamics, including being safe with the given certain system constraints, such as safe driving within the system input and output boundaries, also comprising the control stability. In this paper, a novel ACC design approach is proposed by transforming performance boundaries into control input and output constraints, taking into account the need for safe operation. Firstly, a nonlinear dynamics system is modeled for the ACC system based on the vehicle longitudinal dynamics. Then, a performance-centered ACC system is established based on a control barrier function and a control Lyapunov function for safety and stability concerns, respectively. Subsequently, an optimal control strategy with performance constraints is formulated and recast into a standard quadratic programming problem considering the need for stability and reliability. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a real-world experiment is performed, whose results illustrate the safety performance and practical application of the ACC system.