Coupled Sliding Mode Control of Autonomous Vehicle Platoons Based on Disturbance Observer and Modified Multi-Power Reaching Law

This paper investigates the control problem of autonomous vehicle platoons with nonlinear uncertainties. A coupled sliding mode control strategy (CSMC) that combines disturbance observers with a modified multi-power reaching law (MMPRL) to tackle the nonlinear uncertainties inherent in vehicle platoons is proposed. The MMPRL is designed for CSMC to efficiently suppress chattering and enhance the convergence rate. And the disturbance observer is constructed to estimate uncertainties. The controllers are designed by taking into account the initial spacing errors under the constant time headway strategy (CTHS), and the control protocol guarantees the string stability. Under the case that the initial spacing error is nonzero, the modified constanttime headway strategy (MCTHS) is proposed, which can increase the traffic density and decrease the inter-vehicle spacing of the autonomous vehicle platoons systems. Finally, examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.