Distributed control of vehicle strings under finite-time and safety specifications
This work addresses the problem of coordinating autonomous vehicles at intersections with safety guarantees, which is relevant for intelligent transportation systems.
The paper proposes a distributed control algorithm for a string of vehicles that ensures finite-time approach to a target region while satisfying safety and actuator constraints, even under communication failures. Simulations demonstrate the algorithm's effectiveness in balancing approach time, occupancy time, and fuel/time costs.
This paper studies an optimal control problem for a string of vehicles with safety requirements and finite-time specifications on the approach time to a target region. Our problem formulation is motivated by scenarios involving autonomous vehicles circulating on arterial roads with intelligent management at traffic intersections. We propose a provably correct distributed control algorithm that ensures that the vehicles satisfy the finite-time specifications under speed limits, acceleration saturation, and safety requirements. The safety specifications are such that collisions can be avoided even in cases of communication failure. We also discuss how the proposed distributed algorithm can be integrated with an intelligent intersection manager to provide information about the feasible approach times of the vehicle string and a guaranteed bound of its time of occupancy of the intersection. Our simulation study illustrates the algorithm and its properties regarding approach time, occupancy time, and fuel and time cost.