Abstract This paper considers the decentralized control of vehicle platoons and gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such controllers. Specifically, we consider a predecessor–follower control structure in which a vehicle is responsible for tracking of a desired spacing policy with respect to its predecessor, regardless of the control action of the latter. By building on geometric control theory, this perspective enables to state necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of decentralized controllers that guarantee tracking and asymptotic stabilization of a general (linear) spacing policy. For a given spacing policy, these conditions fully characterize the measurements that are required to achieve the desired control objectives. Furthermore, in this geometric framework with the predecessor–follower structure, string stability properties are shown to be the result of the spacing policy rather than the details of control design. As an example, we fully characterize all state and output feedback controllers that achieve the control goals for the constant headway spacing policy. The results are illustrated through simulations.

中文翻译：

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车辆队列分散控制器的存在：关于间隔策略和可用测量的作用

摘要 本文考虑了车辆队列的分散控制，并给出了这种控制器存在的充要条件。具体来说，我们考虑一种前驱-从动控制结构，其中车辆负责跟踪与其前驱相关的所需间距策略，而不管后者的控制行为如何。通过建立在几何控制理论的基础上，这种观点能够说明分散控制器存在的必要和充分条件，这些条件保证了一般（线性）间距策略的跟踪和渐近稳定。对于给定的间距策略，这些条件完全表征了实现所需控制目标所需的测量。此外，在这种具有前驱-从动结构的几何框架中，字符串稳定性属性被证明是间距策略的结果，而不是控制设计的细节。例如，我们充分表征了所有状态和输出反馈控制器，这些控制器实现了恒定车头间距策略的控制目标。结果通过模拟来说明。