Computation of worst-case spacing errors of vehicle platoons based on a skew-μ method∗

A numerical method is presented for the computation of spacing error bounds in vehicle platoons. The resulted bounds can be applied to evaluate performance of specific platoon control algorithms. The upper bound calculation is based on the computation of worst-case induced L2-gains of systems defined between the disturbance inputs to the leader vehicle and the spacing errors of the follower vehicles. The worst-case is defined subject to heterogeneity in the vehicle dynamics. The method is applicable both in the frequency- and the time-domain. The latter enables the extension of robustness analysis to a wider class of uncertainties and communication topologies. The method is illustrated on a numerical example with leader and predecessor following control architecture.