Longitudinal and lateral control of truck platoons based on finite-time sliding mode

In recent years, truck platooning has emerged as a promising technology to improve fuel efficiency, traffic flow, and road safety. However, achieving coordinated control of truck platoons presents significant challenges, especially considering the nonlinear dynamics and complex interactions between trucks. Longitudinal and lateral control of truck platoons with nonlinear dynamics are considered in this paper, in which a distributed controllers are designed. The characteristics of truck with nonlinear dynamics are considered, that is, a five-degree-of-freedom dynamics model of truck and tire model of “Magic Formula” are introduced, respectively. Simultaneously, a second-order longitudinal platoon model and a lateral lane-keeping model are developed, and a modified constant spacing policy to guarantee string stability is proposed. Then, a longitudinal and lateral decoupling sliding mode controller with finite-time convergence of truck platoons is designed. Furthermore, the finite-time stability and string stability of truck platoons are proved, respectively. Co-simulation experiments are carried out on the joint platform of Trucksim and Simulink, which demonstrate that the proposed controller can achieve fast attenuation of longitudinal and lateral errors, and consensus of truck platoons. Moreover, in order to guarantee safety of truck platoons, this paper gives a systematic estimation on the maximum driving velocity of truck platoons under different scenarios described by road curvatures and road adhesion coefficients. Finally, the main reason of instability for truck platoons is discussed.