Decentralized robust control for vehicle platooning subject to uncertain disturbances via super-twisting second-order sliding-mode observer technique

Platoon-based vehicular cyber-physical systems (VCPSs) have attracted much attention due to their potential to improve road capacity and energy efficiency. However, the comprehensive effect of the mismatched modeling dynamics and unknown disturbances can impose a great challenge on the convergence and stability of vehicle platooning. In this paper, we propose a novel decentralized robust control approach to address the external disturbances in vehicle platooning. Specifically, by combining a super-twisting second-order sliding mode (SOSM) strategy and a disturbance observer (DO), we design a super-twisting SOSMDO platoon controller. We also derive some design conditions of the controller and observer gains. Using the Lyapunov methodology, we theoretically prove under the design conditions the finite-time convergence of the super-twisting SOSMDO to the platooning equilibrium state and its closed-loop stability to the disturbances. Extensive simulations have been conducted and the results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed control approach in terms of inter-vehicle spacing, velocity tracking, and platoon robustness.