Connectivity‐maintained and specified‐time vehicle platoon control systems with disturbance observer

Abstract In this article, the connectivity‐maintained platoon control problem for networked vehicles with external disturbance is considered. By modeling each vehicle as a nonlinear triple integral system, a specified‐time sliding model disturbance observer and a specified‐time controller are presented to ensure the convergence of the platoon system. The predetermined performance method is applied to maintain the connectivity of vehicles in the platoon, which enables flexibility in the communication connectivity between vehicles. The specified time sliding mode disturbance observer is proposed to estimate the external disturbance within the predefined time and it is proved to be uniformly ultimate boundedness stable by using the time transformation method. A dynamic gain controller with the time constraint is proposed to achieve the stable platoon with connectivity maintained for each vehicle. The proposed approach can simultaneously guarantee the specified‐time convergence and connectivity maintenance without depending on any system parameters. The effective of the proposed controller is proved by the Lyapunov function. Finally, comparative simulation results are obtained to verify the effectiveness of the proposed protocols.