Decentralized optimal merging control for connected and automated vehicles with safety constraint guarantees
Files
Accepted manuscript
Date
2021-01
Authors
Xiao, Wei
Cassandras, Christos G.
Version
Accepted manuscript
OA Version
Citation
Wei Xiao, Christos G Cassandras. 2021. "Decentralized optimal merging control for Connected and Automated Vehicles with safety constraint guarantees." Automatica, Volume 123, pp. 109333 - 109333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.automatica.2020.109333
Abstract
This paper addresses the optimal control of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) arriving from
two roads at a Merging Point (MP) where the objective is to jointly minimize the travel time and energy
consumption of each CAV. The optimal solution can be used as a reference for tracking control and it
guarantees that a speed-dependent safety constraint is satisfied both at the MP and everywhere within
a Control Zone (CZ) which precedes it. We analyze the case of no active constraints and prove that
under certain conditions the safety and speed constraints remain inactive, thus significantly simplifying
the determination of an explicit decentralized solution. When these conditions do not apply, a complete
solution is still obtained which includes all possible constraints becoming active. Our analysis allows us
to study the tradeoff between the two objective function components (travel time and energy within
the CZ). Simulation examples are provided to compare the performance of the optimal controller to a
baseline consisting of human-driven vehicles with results showing improvements in both metrics.