Non-linear MPC for Longitudinal and Lateral Control of Vehicle’s Platoon with Insert and Exit Manoeuvres

Vehicle platooning focuses on the problem to achieve cooperation on a shared consensus about distance and speed in a fleet of vehicles. Vehicle platooning represents a challenging concern in road management of self-driving or autonomous vehicles (AVs). Cooperation in vehicle platooning may be realized by communication and control instructions among vehicles to maintain a safe inter-vehicular distance and a specific desired velocity according to the planned path. This paper proposes a longitudinal and lateral control based on non-linear Model Predictive Control (MPC) to manage the vehicles’ safe manoeuvres to insert an external vehicle and to allow the detachment of a member in a platoon. In the proposed cooperative control model, the leader coordinates data exchange both with the followers and with the vehicle, notifying its intention to join or to leave the platoon. It is assumed that all the vehicles have the access to data related to their own position and speed by specific technological devices on board. The leader receives and elaborates the data and, by the control process, sends the optimal control decisions to the other vehicles. The proposed control algorithm minimizes the acceleration and steering wheel and the square deviations of positions and speeds in respect to reference values. The references are computed by a trajectory planner which generates a Bezier Curve in order to create the local path planning. The MPC control of the vehicle, based on a non-linear kinematic model, provides the optimal control values related to the acceleration and steering to perform safe entering and exiting manoeuvring. The simulations of the vehicle movements, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control model.