Cooperative car-following control with electronic throttle and perceived headway errors on gyroidal roads

•An extended car-following model considering the perceived headway errors on gyroidal roads.•The stability condition of proposed model via Hurwitz criterion and the condition for transfer function in terms of H∞ -norm.•A cooperative control signal based on electronic throttle angle is designed.•The simulation results are in good agreement with theoretical analysis. Gyroidal roads are not uncommon on mountainous freeways. In the provision of complex road information such as visual field and slope, some errors between the perceived headway and the real headway information may exist subject to the accuracy of sensors. With the penetration of automated and autonomous vehicles, there is an increasing need for developing a systematic controlling approach to ensure efficient and safe vehicular motion on gyroidal roads. This study contributes to devising a vehicle-to-vehicle communication-based feedback control method with such considerations. A modified car-following model considering perceived headway errors on gyroidal roads is presented. The neutral stability curves of the new model are derived according to the classical control method, which verifies the significant impact of the error coefficient, slope information, and perception time on the robustness of the model, and that the effect of the error coefficient and slope information is positive while that of the perception time is negative. Given the importance of electronic throttle angle information for vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology, a cooperative control signal is designed for the scenario when the above stability condition is unsatisfied. The numerical simulation example verifies the effectiveness of the controller in alleviating traffic congestion and improving road traffic efficiency.