Time variable gain ESO-based fixed-time platoon tracking control for connected vehicles

Autonomous vehicles with information exchange and precision control on the road usually form platoon with smaller gaps between vehicles to increase the road traffic volume and reduce the fossil energy consumption. This paper focuses on uncertain vehicle platoon systems (VPSs) with disturbances and designs a distributed fixed-time disturbance rejection platoon tracking control strategy based on time variable gain extended state observer (TVGESO) and fixed-time stability theory. Firstly, a TVGESO is designed to achieve the estimation of external disturbances, which not only has a stricter stability analysis process of observation error convergence compared to nonlinear extended state observer, but also weakens the phenomenon of “initial differential peak” in traditional linear extended state observer methods. Subsequently, using the estimation of TVGESO and the fixed-time stability theory, a fixed-time control method is derived in the backstepping framework, and stability analysis shows that the control method achieves the system stability in bounded time independently of the initial conditions. Finally, the control strategy is applied to the VPSs, and the simulation and results verify that the control strategy can improve the transient and steady-state tracking control performance.