Fixed-Time Secure Control for Vehicular Platoons Under Deception Attacks on Both Sensor and Actuator via Adaptive Fixed-Time Disturbance Observer

Sensor and actuator deception attacks often manipulate states and control commands, which lead to system performance deterioration or even instability. This article focuses on the platoon control problem for a group of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) subject to both deception attacks and external disturbances. First, modeling both attacks and external disturbances as lumped disturbances, and a novel adaptive fixed-time disturbance observer (AFxTDO) without requiring prior knowledge of the disturbance boundary is further constructed to estimate the lumped disturbances within given time with zero estimation errors. Then, a new global fixed-time stability result with faster convergence rate is developed, together with the given AFxTDO, a variable exponent fixed-time sliding-mode control (VFxTSMC) scheme is established, such that the platoon tracking errors can converge to a predetermined region within the given time while avoiding the singularity phenomenon, improving the convergence speed and reducing the number of controller parameters. Meanwhile, individual vehicle stability and string stability also can be guaranteed within fixed-time by the suggested control scheme. Finally, the simulation results reveal the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algorithm.