IET Intelligent Transport Systems

Research Article

Lateral control system for vehicle platoon ISSN 1751-956X

Received on 21st October 2018
Revised 6th April 2019
considering vehicle dynamic characteristics Accepted on 2nd May 2019
E-First on 22nd May 2019
doi: 10.1049/iet-its.2018.5504
www.ietdl.org

Yang Liu1, Changfu Zong1, Dong Zhang2

1State
Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China
2School of Engineering, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK
E-mail: dzhang@lincoln.ac.uk

Abstract: Longitudinal vehicle platoon control has attracted much attention due to its potential for significantly mitigating traffic
congestion, reducing the incidence of traffic accidents and improving fuel economy. To include platoon motion control in the two-
dimensional situations, this study proposes a lateral control system for vehicle platoon considering vehicle dynamic
characteristics for enhancing the traditional longitudinal platoon control (one-dimensional). The lateral control strategies are
applied into two specific driving conditions: moving in parallel and moving in order which are representative in platoon lateral
control applications and can be extended into a broader driving scenario. An integrated controller with motion control layer and
actuator control layer is introduced to achieve the proposed lateral spacing control strategies. Three corresponding simulations
are used to validate the proposed control system, and the results demonstrate that: during the two specific driving scenario,
moving in order and moving in parallel, show different motion characteristics; platoon with proposed control system of platoon
can realise a general curved driving task with a changing speed; the lateral following errors are influenced by the difference of
dynamics characteristics between the four-wheel independent driving vehicle and the front steering vehicle which should be
taken into consideration in determination of expected lateral space.

1 Introduction analysis and platoon longitudinal control [11]. Other researchers

Collaborative vehicle platoon control is a prospective combination
of the intelligent and connected vehicles. The platoon control aims
to ensure all vehicles in the same group move at the same speed
while maintaining a desired distance between adjacent vehicles [1].
With the rapid development of communication technology,
computer technology and artificial intelligence, traditional cars are
gradually realising the exchange and sharing of running
information between vehicles and X (people, vehicles, roads etc.),
and are gradually engaging in complicated environmental
perception, intelligent decision-collaborative control and
implementation of other functions soon [2].
The study of platoons began with the PATH project in 1990s,
California [3, 4]. Subsequently, other research and applications
have been carried out, including the GCDC in the Netherlands [5],
SARTRE in Europe [6] and Energy-ITS in Japan [7]. Most of this
research focuses on spacing control strategies, which includes
constant-time-gap and constant spacing-gap vehicle following. The
former adjusts the flexibility of the platoon by adjusting the time
gap, while the latter has tightly coupled performance due to the
constant spacing gap. In these studies, longitudinal multivehicle
cooperative control could be used for a variety of advantages [8].
Obviously, these advantages must be achieved by longitudinal
coordinated control, and the reference path must to be tracked or
modified by lateral control. Research has attempted to demonstrate
that a lane keeping system (LKS) can meet the needs of lateral
cooperative control for a platoon [9]. However, it is difficult for an
LKS to handle cooperative lane changing problems, obstacle
avoidance and other conditions, especially roads without traffic
lane recognition. To improve the automation level of a vehicle
platoon, it is necessary to incorporate a lateral control system into
the platoon controller, which can also contribute a theoretical
foundation for multi-platoon cooperative control.
Based on the traditional longitudinal vehicle platoon spacing
control strategy, the distributed controller may obtain the neighbour
vehicle's information from wireless communication and
environmental sensors to achieve motion control [10]. For
example, a linear controller is widely used in string stability
are working on sliding mode control for string stability through
posterior controller tuning [12]. Furthermore, model predictive
control (MPC) is commonly used for platoons to determine the
optimal solution in more complex situations [13]. As mentioned
above, large number of researchers put focus on the longitudinal
control of vehicle platoon, and some cooperative control strategies
will also give priority to the longitudinal direction. Platoon lateral
control is rarely analysed. A proportion integration differentiation
(PID) controller and robust PID controller are designed to achieve
the lateral driving tasks, such as multivehicle merging and lane
changing, while some scholars believe the lateral control of
vehicles in a platoon should be independent and dependent on the
function of an LKS [14]. However, the control effectiveness is
limited by application scenarios and control strategies.
Besides, considering the lateral movement, the node dynamics
model should be reconsidered and modified. The desired node
dynamics should satisfy the requirements as follows: (i) the state
equation should reflect better controllability in lateral and
longitudinal directions and (ii) reflect the differences in vehicle
dynamic characteristics. The focus of existing platoon node models
is on longitudinal simple integrator models [15], which can hardly
meet the needs of platoon lateral control. Therefore, there is a
strong need in node dynamics models for platoon lateral control.
Compared to traditional vehicles with only front axle steering, a
four-wheel independent driving vehicle (FWIDV) has more
controllable degrees of freedom, which greatly improve vehicle
manoeuvrability since better steering flexibility is possible at low
speed and better vehicle stability is ensured at high speed [16]. Due
to the lack of analysis in lateral vehicle platoon dynamics, existing
studies seldom considers the different vehicle dynamic
characteristics of FWIDVs in vehicle platoon control.
Due to these issues, we proposed a novel lateral control system
based on lateral spacing strategies for vehicle platoon considering
vehicle dynamics characteristics. The principal contributions of
this paper are as follows.
(i) Inspired by longitudinal spacing control strategies, we proposed
two lateral control strategies to achieve lateral cooperative control

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of platoon which can be extended to more general application
scenarios.
(ii) An integrated controller based on MPC is introduced to realise
coupling control in longitudinal and lateral directions with
proposed spacing strategies for traditional front-steering vehicles
and FWIDVs.
(iii) The vehicle dynamic characteristic is fully taken consideration
into the proposed control system, and the influences of dynamic Fig. 1  Schematic diagram of lateral spacing
characteristics on motion control are explored which can be applied
in further studies of lateral control strategy. Table 1 Definition of parameters and variables
Symbols Descriptions
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In Section 2,
the lateral control strategies of platoon motion are proposed, the x longitudinal displacement in vehicle coordinate system
platoon driving situation primarily includes vehicles moving in y lateral displacement in vehicle coordinate system
order, moving in parallel and a combination of both. Section 3 δf, δr steering angle of front and rear tires
introduces an integrated controller based on MPC to realise the X longitudinal displacement in global coordinate system
control strategies in longitudinal and lateral directions. In Section αf, αr side angle of front and rear tires
4, simulation experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness
of the proposed integrated controller, and three main simulations Y lateral displacement in global coordinate system
are used for validation. Section 5 presents the conclusions and φ yaw angle of the vehicle
future research. lf wheelbase of front wheel
lr wheelbase of rear wheel
2 Platoon control strategy m mass of the vehicle
2.1 Scenario analysis Ccf cornering stiffness of front wheels

For longitudinal control of a vehicle platoon, there are many Ccr cornering stiffness of rear wheels
differences between constant distance control and constant time Iz moment of inertia
spacing control. For example, constant distance control allows Sf slip ratio of front wheel
roads to have more capacity and following vehicles to reduce fuel
Sr slip ratio of rear wheel
consumption. However, constant time spacing control can make
vehicle platoon control more flexible and improve the stability and μ road adhesion coefficient
security of the platoon. For these reasons, the lateral vehicle Fz vertical force of the tire
platoon control can be inconsistent with the aim of longitudinal vf, vr velocity of front and rear road wheel
control strategy.
Rf,tire, Rr,tire effective rolling radius of tires
For the analysis of the lateral control strategy, the mathematical
concept of lateral spacing must be defined. As shown in Fig. 1, Tf, Tr drive torque of tires
when the leading vehicle is Vehicle0, most existing research Jf rotary inertia of tires
focuses on how to determine the values of ΔX1 and ΔX2 and their Fxf, Fxr longitudinal force of front and rear tires in vehicle
impact on traffic flow, economy and safety. However, the lateral coordinate system
spacing values of ΔY1 and ΔY2 obviously play an important role on Fyf, Fyr lateral force of front and rear tires in vehicle coordinate
the safety and stability of the vehicle platoon. As mentioned above, system
the current solution is to maintain vehicles in the lane with an LKS,
but when the leading vehicle decides to change lanes, the system
stops functioning and reminds the driver to assume control. ε = ΔY id − ΔY ia = f − Y 0 + Y i (2)
Moreover, it is difficult for drivers to perform precisely in these
simultaneous vehicle moving conditions, which may lead to By differentiation, the change rate of lateral error ε̇i is obtained as
platoon disbandment.
follows:
For the lateral control of a platoon, safety must be considered
an important issue, which could include vehicle collision avoidance
[17]. Hesham Rakha suggested that intersection management could ε̇i = f˙ − Ẏ 0 + Ẏ i
(3)
be considered a collaborative optimisation problem [18], but it is = f˙ − ẋ0sin φ0 + ẏ0cos φ0 − ẋisin φi + ẏicos φi
much more difficult for each vehicle to independently implement
path planning control. However, with a lateral vehicle platoon where xi denotes the state information of vehicle i. For parameter
control system, vehicles can avoid collision in an orderly manner,
and variable definitions, refer to Table 1.
which can effectively decrease the complexity of collision
The aim of the control strategy is to make the lateral spacing
avoidance and improve traffic safety.
error approach zero, which requires ε̇ ≤ 0. As shown in (3), the
To achieve lateral cooperative control of a platoon, the lateral
convergence rate of the lateral spacing error is determined by the
spacing strategy is proposed with reference to the longitudinal
results of the lateral and longitudinal coupling motion between
platoon geometry.
vehicles.
Let ɛi(t) denote the real lateral spacing (real following distance)
Platoon movement includes a variety of forms of running
between the target vehicle and the ith vehicle, and Yi(t) denote the conditions. For simplification, the following two specific cases are
lateral position of ith vehicle. Then, the actual relative lateral set to describe the vehicle platoon lateral moving conditions:
position ΔYia and the desired relative lateral position ΔYid of the ith
vehicle can be calculated from (1) as follows: (i) Lane changing cases: In these cases, vehicles in a platoon can
change lanes at any time according to the environmental situations.
ΔY ia = Y 0 − Y i (ii) Road curving cases: It includes intersections, curved roads and
(1) so on. These cases require the vehicle to steer in a specific point.
ΔY id = f

where f denotes the function of desired lateral spacing.
With the actual lateral spacing and desired lateral spacing, the
lateral error ɛ can be obtained from (2)
2.2 Platoon steering strategy
Based on the abovementioned cases, three control strategies are
proposed according to the time sequence of vehicle steering,

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Fig. 2  Platoon steering strategies
Fig. 3  Schematic diagram of integrated controller
Fig. 4  Schematic diagram of FWIDV model
namely, moving in order, moving in parallel and moving in self-
adaption.
Moving in order strategy requires all vehicles in a platoon to
move along the same track determined by the objective driving
environment, as shown in Fig. 2a
ΔY id = kaΔviyrel + kbΔφirel (4)
where ka and kb are control gain coefficients. Δviyrel and Δφirel
denote the relative lateral velocity and relative yaw angle between
vehicle I and the leading vehicle.
With this spacing control strategy, the lateral distance between
adjacent vehicles in the platoon is determined by the relative lateral
speed. The following vehicles can track the path of the leading
vehicle rather than the vehicle ahead, which makes the
communication and control more flexible.
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Moving in parallel strategy requires all vehicles in a platoon to
move at the same time and track their own trajectories, as shown in
Fig. 2b
ΔY id = ΔY costant (5)
With this spacing control strategy, the lateral distance between
adjacent vehicles approaches zero.
In addition, realistic situations are much more complex than
both limiting conditions. For example: vehicles in a platoon could
move in self-adaption, i.e. adjust their lateral spacing intelligently
without the platoon broken, as shown in Fig. 2c. Since moving in
self-adaption requires more environmental information and an
upper-level control strategy for the time spacing gap calculation, it
will not be discussed in detail in this paper. This paper pays
attention to moving in order and moving in parallel to discuss their
characteristics for applying them in other general situations in
future.
3 Integrated controller based on MPC
To achieve the proposed lateral spacing control strategies and
obtain the best performance for discussion, the integrated controller
is used which consists of an MPC motion control layer and an
actuator control layer. As shown in Fig. 3, the MPC motion control
layer is used to calculate the desired force of the front and rear tires
by minimising the following error between actual space and
expected space given by spacing strategies. The desired tire forces
are obtained by adjusting the drive torques and the steering angles
of the tires using the actuator control layer.
3.1 Dynamics model
In this section, an FWIDV is used as the research object to explore
the feasibility of applying the 3-DOF vehicle dynamic model to the
vehicle platoon control. To facilitate the use of the controller, the
non-linear dynamic model is linearised, and its continuous system
is discretised.
The dynamic model established in this section is mainly used as
the predictive model in the controller. The model must be
simplified for the calculation, including the following idealised
assumptions:
(a) Ignore the influence of the vehicle's vertical motion and
suspension.
(b) The vehicle motion is described by the monorail model without
considering the left and right load transfer.
(c) The linear tire model is adopted, and the slip rate is maintained
at the optimum operating point.
(d) Ignore longitudinal and lateral aerodynamics.
Fig. 4 is a diagram of the FWIDV, which includes the longitudinal,
lateral and yaw degrees of freedom. The FWIDV model equation is
shown in (6). The definitions of the parameters and variables are
listed in Table 1
mÿ = − mẋφ̇ + 2Fy f + 2Fyr
mẍ = mẏφ̇ + 2Fx f + 2Fxr (6)
Izφ̈ = 2l f Fy f − 2lrFyr
Consider the conversion relationship between the local
coordinate system and the global coordinate system
Ẋ cos φ −sin φ ẋ
= (7)
Ẏ sin φ cos φ ẏ
Combined with these two expressions, the vehicle non-linear
dynamics model can be obtained. To predict the motion of the
vehicle and simplify the calculation, it is necessary to linearise the
non-linear dynamic model [16]; the system is described as the
state-space equation (8) as follows:
3
 Ė = A t Ė t + Bu t (8) Table 2 Basic parameters of MPC controller
Symbols Descriptions Values
0 −φ̇ 0 −ẋ 0 0 Nx number of state variables 6
φ̇ 0 0 ẏ 0 0 Nu number of control variables 4
0 0 0 1 0 0 Ny number of output variables 3
A(t) =
0 0 0 0 0 0 Np number of predict step 40
cos φ sin φ ẋcosφ − ẏsin φ 0 0 0 Nc number of control step 1
−sin φ −cos φ −ẋsin φ − ẏcos φ 0 0 0 T sampling time 0.02
T_all total simulation time 20
2 2
0 0
m m
2 2 ~T ~ ~T
u
0 0 2B B −2B
m m H= ~ ~
−2B 2I S (13)
B(t) = 0 0 0 0
~ T
2l f 2lr f= u S
0 0 −
Iz Iz
0 0 0 0 Using (13), the solution u will be obtained, and the proving
progress can be shown as follows.
0 0 0 0 Prove:

where E t = ẏ, ẋ, φ, φ̇, Y, X T, and control variables are selected 1 T

~T ~
2B B −2B
~T
u 0
~T ~T
J= + uT
2 u S S
T ~
as u t = Fx f , Fxr, Fy f , Fyr . The first-order interpolation method ~
S 0
−2B 2I
is used to discretise the formula, and the discrete state-space
equation (9) is obtained as follows: u
= uTB~TB~ − S~TB~ ~T
−uTB + S
~T
~
S
E k + 1 = I + T A E k + TBu k (9) ~T ~ ~T ~ ~T ~ ~T ~
= uTB Bu − S Bu − uTB S + S S
where T denotes the sample time, and I denotes the unit matrix. ~ ~ T ~ ~
= Bu − S Bu − S
~ ~2
3.2 MPC control layer = Bu − S
The control objective in this section is to manage the position
errors, including longitudinal and lateral spacing error. The desired In the predictive controller design based on a dynamical model,
spacing determined in the control strategy was mentioned some constraints on handling stability must be set except the
previously. The mathematical expression of the control objective necessary constraints of the control variables. The physical
can be written as (10) as follows: limitations of control variables are as follows:
2
Np Fx2 + Fy2 ≤ μF z (14)
Jk = ∑ P k+i t + Pd k + i t − Y re f k + i t
2

i=1 The tire lateral force is obtained by controlling the steering angle of
(10)
Ne − 1 Ne − 1 the road wheel. However, the change value of the lateral force is
+ ∑ U k+i t 2
+ ∑ ΔU k + i t 2
limited by the rotation speed; therefore, the change in lateral force
i=1 i=1 is limited by the maximum lateral force variation

where Yref denotes the output variables of the leading vehicle; P ΔFy ≤ ΔFy, max (15)
denotes the output variables of the host vehicle; Pd denotes the
desired spacing gap between the leading vehicle and the host This paper requires the same model to control traditional front-
vehicle. wheel steering vehicles. Assuming the longitudinal force of a
The basic parameters affect the performance of the controller traditional vehicle can be individually controlled by the brake
significantly. Hence, some key parameters are tuned as given in system and driving system, the steering angle of the rear road
Table 2. wheel is zero which means that the lateral force of the rear road
The output variable Y may be obtained from (11) as follows: wheel is related to the side angle of the vehicle. Then the
traditional vehicle has the following restriction shown in (16),
0 0 1 0 0 0 which is caused by physical constraints
P = CE k = 0 0 0 0 1 0Ek (11)
lrφ̇ − ẏ
0 0 0 0 0 1 Fyr = Ccr (16)
ẋ
Substituting (11) and (9) into (10), the objective function should be
where φ̇, ẏ, ẋ are the first-order differential of φ, y and x.
minimised by (13) as follows:

min C I + T A E + TBu + Pd − Y ref 2 (12) 3.3 Actuator control layer

FWIDVs are over-actuated vehicles in which, the tires’ driving
~
S = Y ref − CE − CT AE − Pd torque and steering angle should be controlled properly to improve
Assuming ~ , then, (12) is equal to the system performance. In the MPC control layer, the desired
B = CTB force of the tires is in the vehicle coordinate system. The actuator
~ ~2
min Bu − S . control layer is used to quickly control the desired wheel slip ratio
Let matrix H and matrix f in quadratic programming be and sideslip angle.
Coordinate system conversion: The principle of the coordinate
system conversion is shown in Fig. 5. The tire force in the tire

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coordinate system can be obtained by solving the following
equation:

Fl f cos δ f 0 sin δ f 0 Fx f
Flr 0 cos δr 0 sin δr Fxr
= (17)
Fc f −sin δ f 0 cos δ f 0 Fy f
Fcr 0 −sin δ f 0 cos δ f Fyr

Inverse tire model: Due to the MPC control layer, the driving
torque and steering angle should be calculated using the
longitudinal and lateral forces of tires with tire model. Many
studies have shown that this problem can be solved using magic
tire model, Dugoff model and linear tire model [19, 20]. To
simplify the calculation, a linear tire model is adapted. The model
has a high fitting accuracy when the lateral acceleration ay≤0.4 g.
The driving torque and steering angle can be obtained by the
following equations:
Fig. 5  Diagram of tire force
Sf Cl f Fl f
Sr Clr Flr
= (18)
αf Cc f Fc f
αr Ccr Fcr

Jtireω̇ = T tire − Fx ⋅ Rtire (19)

Combined with (19), the time derivative of S = (Rtireω − vx)/vx can

be obtained as (20)

v̇ f vf J f
T f = Fx f R f , tire + Ṡ f − S −1
vf f R f , tire
(20)
v̇r v f Jr
T r = Fxr Rr, tire + Ṡr − S −1
vr r Rr, tire

where vf and vr denote the velocity of the front road wheel and rear
road wheel.
The steering angle of the tires can be calculated by (21)

ẏ + l f φ̇
δf = αf +
ẋ
(21)
ẏ − lrφ̇
δr = αr +
ẋ

Note that when (21) is applied for the control of a conventional

front steering vehicle, the steering angle δr will be equal to zero.

4 Simulation validation
4.1 Model validation and experimental setup
The co-simulation between CarSim and Simulink was introduced
as a testing platform. The desired driving behaviours were set as
the target trajectory, which was used to calculate the steering angle Fig. 6  DLC reference trajectory
and drive torque of the leading vehicle. The following vehicles (a) Reference lateral position, (b) Reference yaw angle
could obtain the leading vehicle information to determine their
driving activities combined with the spacing strategy. 2.4 2.4
The target trajectory is shown in Fig. 6, consisting of a z1 = (X − 27.19) − 1.2, z2 = (X − 56.46) − 1.2,
25 21.95
reference lateral position Yref and a reference yaw angle φref, both
dy1 = 4.05, dy2 = 5.7
are expressed as a non-linear function with respect to the
longitudinal position X [21]. The double-shift trajectory consists of
a reference lateral position and a reference yaw angle. The To verify the performance of the integrated controller proposed
expression is shown in the following equations: in this paper, the FWIDV is required to drive at a target speed of
36 km/h in the reference DLC path. The control accuracy of a 3-
dy1 dy1 1 + tan z2 DOF dynamics model and the FWIDV model which are both
Y ref X = 1 + tan z1 − (22)
2 2 controlled by MPC, are compared.
It can be seen from Fig. 7 that the integrated controller working
1 2
1.2 1 2
1.2 on FWIDV achieves precise control so that the vehicle tracks the
φref X = arctan dy1 − dy2 (23) path with less error. The control inputs are shown in Fig. 8. The
cosh z1 d x1 cosh z2 d x2
results of the model validation indicate that the proposed integrated

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Fig. 7  Comparison of different models for validation
Fig. 8  Control input of FWIDV for validation
(a) Steering angle of FWIDV, (b) Wheel drive torques of FWIDV
controller based on MPC controller has enough performance to be
implemented in the following simulation verification.
Through the previous analysis, the key to multi-vehicle lateral
cooperative control is to rationally adjust the lateral spacing
between vehicles according to their environmental situations. The
lateral and longitudinal cooperative control of multiple vehicles is a
coupling problem. When the following vehicle attempts to correct
the lateral error, it is also necessary to adjust the speed to ensure
that longitudinal error is within reasonable limits.
During the simulation, each platoon includes three vehicles,
including vehicle0 – the leading vehicle and vehicle1, vehicle2 – the
following vehicles. For the vehicles in the platoon, the leading
vehicle acquires the complete path while the following vehicles can
only obtain the position information of each vehicle. In the
following simulations, three cases are discussed: (i) by comparing
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Table 3 Table of vehicle parameters
Symbol name Value Symbol name Value
m 1723 Ccf 66,900
I 4175 Ccr 62,700
lf 1.232 Sf 0.2
lr 1.468 Sr 0.2
the results of different lateral control spacing strategies, the
characteristics of each strategy and their possible applications are
analysed; (ii) the leading vehicle is driving on an ordinary curved
road at changing speed, and the control performance is observed to
analyse the coupling control effect in longitudinal and lateral
directions; (iii) tracking characteristics of FWIDVs and
conventional front-wheel steering vehicles are compared in DLC
conditions, which is used to analyse the influence of the dynamic
difference in the platoon on the cooperative control.
The vehicle parameters must be set for simulation. This article
refers to an E-class vehicle, and the specific data is shown in
Table 3.
4.2 Simulation and result analysis
4.2.1 Analysis of following control for different strategies: In
this section, the performance of platoons controlled by the MPC
controller with different strategies will be analysed. The
performances of two platoons will also be discussed.
From Fig. 9a, changes in lateral position cause fluctuations in
the following vehicles. However, the lateral following error is not
increasing gradually which means the lateral control spacing error
will gradually converge rather than increase. Consequently, the
platoon is prevented from running out of control. The lateral and
longitudinal speed of the vehicles in Figs. 9b and c changes
simultaneously for the three vehicles, indicating the moving in
parallel control strategy for the platoon is in a good working state.
In the longitudinal direction, the longitudinal velocity change of
the vehicle does not lead to a significant increase in amplitude; and
the apparent lateral velocity error also gradually decreases, so it is
reasonable to infer that the relative lateral velocity would converge
as it passes through the platoon.
In Fig. 10, vehicles move in order with a time gap, which means
the lateral spacing gap changes over time. From Fig. 10a, the
motions of the vehicles are distributed in a similar area, which
means this movement requires less road space. To facilitate the
analysis of the movement sequence of vehicles in the platoon, we
choose the time as the x-axis in Fig. 10b. The curves of the lateral
position present the control strategy of the vehicle's sequential
actions. The lateral velocity trend is shown in Fig. 10c. Although
the curves seem irregular, similar to moving in parallel, the peak of
lateral velocity is gradually increasing, while the difference is
gradually decreasing. The results show the amplification effect is
basically correspond in both modes of operation. In the mode of
moving in order, the time gap could be adjusted according to the
road limitation. By changing of the time gap, the formation of the
platoon could be more flexible.
Through the analysis of control strategies in different scenarios,
we can conclude as follows:
(i) Moving in parallel can result in the platoon assuming a rigid
formation. In some cases, such as highway lane change, moving in
parallel can achieve rapid movement while maintaining the
formation, and the motion of platoon can be stabilised quickly.
However, an adequate amount of road space is required to
accommodate the movement of the vehicles in the platoon.
(ii) Moving in order passes through a time interval, makes the
platoon more flexible, therefore, softly passing a curving road or
path. However, the control strategy is more complex, and the
selection of the time interval and change mode have a serious
impact on platoon motion.
We have known that moving in parallel and moving in order have
different characteristics, and we believe that there are some
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Fig. 9  Motion of vehicles moving in parallel at a speed of 36 km/h
(a) Lateral position, (b) Lateral velocity, (c) Longitudinal velocity
potential extensions by combining them. For an example, the
platoon can be divided into sub-platoons composed of different
vehicles and the sub-platoons can adopt different control strategies,
some of the sub-platoon use moving in parallel inside, and the
others use moving in order relative to the previous sub-platoons.
Through a flexible combination of different control strategies, the
platoon can perform more complex driving tasks.
4.2.2 Analysis of following control at changing speeds: The
proposed method can perform coordinated control of vehicles
through lateral and longitudinal spacing strategies. In this section,
the leading vehicle is driving at a variable speed on a curved road.
The following vehicles perform tracking control without the path
information and only the current state information of the leading
vehicle.
In Fig. 11a, the performance of the lateral control system for the
leading vehicle driving on a curved road is shown. Under the
premise that the following vehicles cannot obtain the complete path
of the leading vehicle, they complete the tracking tasks through the
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Fig. 10  Motion of vehicles moving in order at 36 km/h
(a) Path of the vehicles, (b) Lateral position of the vehicles, (c) Lateral velocity of the
vehicles
preset spacing and the lateral control system. The results show that
the control system has good precision. The control input is shown
in Fig. 11b. According to Fig. 11c, the longitudinal speed can be
followed by controlling the driving torque of the following
vehicles.
Through the simulation analysis, it is shown that the speed and
lateral position of the following vehicles can be adjusted in order
for, the vehicles in the platoon to maintain a stable formation
through the lateral and longitudinal spacing control strategies.
4.2.3 Analysis of following ability of vehicles with different
dynamic characteristics: To compare the performance of vehicles
with different lateral dynamics characteristics, a FWIDV and a
front-wheel steering vehicle were simultaneously tracked as a
following vehicle with a same expected lateral space, and the
results are shown in Fig. 12.
As shown in Fig. 12a, the FWIDV has higher response speed
and tracking accuracy when following the leading vehicle due to
7

Fig. 11  Simulation results at 72 km/h
(a) Actual paths of the vehicles, (b) Lateral control input the vehicles, (c) Longitudinal
velocities of the vehicles
more control degrees of freedom. Fig. 12b shows the steering
angles input by the proposed controller. For the FWIDV, the front
and rear steering angles are almost in approximately the same
direction. This can effectively ensure a stable yaw rate for the
FWIDV while providing sufficient lateral acceleration.
In Fig. 13a, the yaw rate of the FWIDV is less than that of the
front steering vehicle, indicating that the FWIDV has a higher
stability margin under the same conditions. Fig. 13b shows the
distribution of acceleration. Since the DLC operating condition is
at constant speed, the longitudinal acceleration is low compared
with lateral acceleration. However, in the lateral direction, the
acceleration of the FWIDV is greater than that of the front steering
vehicle, which is the reason the FWIDV has better lateral tracking
capability.
Based on the analysis in this section, we can conclude that: in
the platoon, when the vehicle is performing lateral tracking, the
8 IET Intell. Transp. Syst.
Fig. 12  Comparison of FWIDV and front steering vehicle at 72 km/h
(a) Path of FWIDV and front steering vehicle, (b) Control input of FWIDV and front
steering vehicle
difference in dynamics is reflected in the maximum lateral
acceleration that can be achieved while maintaining the stability of
the vehicle. When a vehicle with a low lateral acceleration follows
a vehicle with a large lateral acceleration, effective methods should
be adapted to avoid a harmful lateral following error like a
sufficient longitudinal deceleration.
5 Conclusions
A vehicle platoon consists of multiple intelligent vehicles and
spacing control strategies are as their interacting mechanism
between vehicles. To achieve lateral control tasks, this paper
proposed a lateral control system considering vehicle dynamic
characteristics for vehicle platoons based on lateral spacing control
strategies. An integrated controller is used to achieve longitudinal
and lateral following control according to spacing control
strategies. Our simulations are implemented to verify the
performance of the proposed system which is summarised as
follows:
(i) Lateral spacing control strategies are proposed for different
application scenarios. Two limiting conditions, the moving in order
and moving in parallel strategies, are described, and the other
vehicle platoon lateral control scenarios are covered with the same
proposed control strategy. The combination of both strategies can
enhance the intelligence of the platoon and can be applied into
other complex driving situations.
(ii) The proposed control system with longitudinal and lateral
spacing strategies exhibits high-grade control performance and can
achieve general curvature conditions with the change of speed.
(iii) For exploring the influences of different dynamics
characteristics on lateral control of platoon, this paper compares
the performance of an FWIDV with traditional vehicles. The
results demonstrate that an FWIDV can follow the leading vehicle
more quickly and effectively and has better handling stability in
high-speed conditions than front steering vehicles with a same
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2019

Fig. 13  Handling stability comparison between FWIDV and front steering
vehicle
(a) Yaw rate of FWIDV and front steering vehicle, (b) Acceleration of FWIDV and
front steering vehicle
expected lateral space due to their maximum achievable
accelerations. Insufficient acceleration will produce undesirable
lateral following error. Therefore, lateral control strategy should
take the maximum acceleration into consideration while deciding
the expected lateral space so that the vehicles in platoon can
maintain a stable driving state by reducing following errors.
IET Intell. Transp. Syst.
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2019
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