Distributed fixed-time leader-tracking control for heterogeneous uncertain autonomous connected vehicles platoons

Longitudinal control for platoons of connected autonomous vehicles is a hot research topic in the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITSs) domain. Most of the existing results solve the platooning problem asymptotically, without ensuring that the consensus could be achieved in a finite settling time. To this aim, in this work we address the problem of guaranteeing the leader-tracking for heterogeneous vehicles platoons in a fixed time despite the presence of external disturbances. To solve this problem, by exploiting the integral sliding mode (ISM) approach and the Lyapunov theory, we propose a distributed control strategy able to ensure the leader-tracking in a finite settling time which is independent from any vehicles initial conditions. The simulation analysis, carried out in two different driving scenarios, confirms the effectiveness of the theoretical derivation.