Event-triggered prescribed-time control for vehicular platoon systems with unknown disturbances

An event-triggered prescribed-time control scheme is proposed for vehicular platoon systems (VPSs) subject to parameter uncertainties, unknown external disturbances, and actuator saturation. By utilizing the time-scaling method and the finite-time stable theory, we transform the prescribed-time stability problem of the VPSs in finite time domain into the asymptotic stability problem in infinite time domain. On the basis of this, this work proposes a nonlinear prescribed-time disturbance observer for each follower vehicle, which can accurately estimate unknown lumped disturbance within a prescribed settling time. Then, a novel event-triggered prescribed-time control scheme is designed for the VPSs, which combines back-stepping technology and time-scaling method. This scheme simultaneously addresses the issues of ensuring the convergence of tracking errors within the prescribed settling time and reducing wastage of communication resources. Moreover, the proposed scheme ensures the stability of the closed-loop system within the prescribed settling time, while guaranteeing the tracking performance of the VPSs. The settling time is not affected by the initial states of the systems and the parameters of the controllers. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control method is confirmed through numerical simulations.