Cooperative adaptive cruise control presents an opportunity to improve road transportation through increase in road capacity and reduction in energy use and accidents. Clever design of control algorithms and communication systems is required to ensure that the vehicle platoon is stable and meets desired safety requirements. In this paper, we propose a centralized model predictive controller for a heterogeneous platoon of vehicles to reach a desired platoon velocity and individual inter-vehicle distances with driver-selected headway time. As a novel concept, we allow for interruption from a human driver in the platoon that temporarily takes control of their vehicle with the assumption that the driver will, at minimum, obey legal velocity limits and the physical performance constraints of their vehicle. The finite horizon cost function of our proposed platoon controller is inspired from the infinite horizon design. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first platoon controller that integrates human-driven vehicles. We illustrate the performance of our proposed design with a numerical study, demonstrating that the safety distance, velocity, and actuation constraints are obeyed. Additionally, in simulation we illustrate a key property of string stability where the impact of a disturbance is reduced through the platoon.

翻译：协同自适应巡航控制通过提升道路容量、降低能源消耗和交通事故，为改善公路运输提供了机遇。为确保车辆队列稳定并满足所需安全要求，需要精心设计控制算法和通信系统。本文针对异构车辆队列提出一种集中式模型预测控制器，旨在实现期望的队列速度、驾驶员选择车头时距下的个体车间距。作为一项创新概念，我们允许队列中人类驾驶员进行中断干预，在假设驾驶员至少遵守法定速度限制及车辆物理性能约束的前提下临时接管车辆控制权。所提出的队列控制器有限时域代价函数借鉴了无限时域设计思想。据我们所知，这是首个整合人类驾驶车辆的队列控制器。通过数值研究验证了所提设计的性能，证明其满足安全距离、速度和执行器约束。此外，仿真结果揭示了队列的弦稳定性关键特性——扰动影响在队列传递过程中逐步衰减。