This article studies the problem of cooperative control of heterogeneous vehicles in a platoon. First, a novel predictive spacing strategy (PSS) is proposed for vehicles that are described by a third-order heterogeneous dynamics model. The PSS utilizes the current velocity information of each vehicle to predict its travel distance forward, thereby enhancing the control performance of the vehicle platoon. Second, the vehicle platooning problem is equivalently transformed into a leader-following consensus (LFC) for multi-vehicle system by introducing new variables, and in this way a distributed linear control protocol with a generalized structure is proposed. Then, we cleverly employ a linear transformation based on a directed spanning tree (DST) to further convert the consensus problem into an asymptotic stability problem with partial variables of the equivalent system. On this basis, the conditions for achieving platoon control in the multi-vehicle system are derived in conjunction with the partial stability theory, and the conditions for the system to satisfy string stability are further deduced. In addition, a method for solving the gain matrix in the control protocol is elaborated. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed PSS and the designed protocol is verified by numerical simulation.

This article investigates the problem of finite-frequency fault estimation (FE) and adaptive event-triggered fault-tolerant consensus for linear parameter-varying multiagent systems. A polytopic parameter-varying framework is introduced to represent the dynamics of each agent with internal model perturbation and parameter uncertainties. In order to reduce the conservatism brought by full-frequency domain approaches, the finite-frequency technique is employed to design a FE observer that can estimate the magnitude of faults. To eliminate/reduce the impact of faults on system performance, an adaptive event-triggered fault-tolerant consensus controller is then developed, which adjusts the consensus protocol based on the FE information. With the developed distributed fault-tolerant protocol and adaptive event-triggered control scheme, the agents can reach consensus in the presence of system faults and the transmission of unnecessary information in the control channels is avoided. The proposed triggering scheme offers certain advantages over existing results in balancing desired consensus performance and improving network utilization. By constructing a parameter-dependent Lyapunov function, a sufficient condition for designing the consensus controller gain and the adjustment matrix can be derived in the form of linear matrix inequality. Finally, two simulation examples are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.

This paper focuses on the problem of distributed fault detection and leader-following output consensus for heterogeneous multiagent systems subject to deception attacks. During the information exchange and dissemination, a malicious attacker can make full use of specialized computer technology and launch stochastic deception attacks against some vulnerable agents over the network. The attack signals in actual operation tend to be energy-constrained, and Bernoulli distribution can be used to describe the random features. Taking the attack information into account, the distributed fault detection observer and the dynamic consensus compensator are designed in two separate steps. In order to reduce unnecessary information transmission, a dynamic event-triggered mechanism with output-dependent threshold is introduced to the adjustment of consensus protocol. According to Lyapunov stability theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI) techniques, sufficient conditions are derived for developing the model gains of the observer and the compensator. Finally, a simulation example of RLC circuit systems is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.

This paper investigates the robust distributed model predictive control (DMPC) based consensus problem of general linear discrete-time multi-agent systems subject to external disturbances. We first propose a robust DMPC based consensus algorithm, mainly relying on the DMPC based consensus of a nominal system whose state deviation from the actual state is bounded by an invariant set. We then prove the feasibility and robust consensus of the proposed algorithm. Finally, we present a numerical example to verify the theoretical results.

This paper addresses the problem of determining time-optimal trajectories, between two specified configurations, for a nonholonomic bidirectional steered robot. It presents an original geometric reasoning that is grounded on Pontryagin's maximum principle, which provides analytical solutions of this problem in a visually clear way and allows for an effective algorithm to compute the exact optimal trajectories between two arbitrarily specified configurations. The proposed geometric reasoning is based on the analysis of the switching functions of the optimal controller and the definition of a switching vector from which it is able to determine a unit vector rotating along a unit circle of an appropriate coordinate system. It is shown that simple geometric rules are sufficient to determine all possible rotations of this unit vector, from which the time-optimal trajectories can be uniquely determined. The proposed algorithm, which is based on this geometric reasoning, is guaranteed to be complete and has a low computational cost. Moreover, the proposed geometric representation provides an interesting insight into the structure of this class of nonholonomic systems, thereby offering a model for further studies.