Predictor and ESO-based adaptive tracking control of heterogeneous vehicle platoon

This paper investigates the distributed adaptive platoon tracking problem of third-order heterogeneous vehicles subject to model uncertainties. The design process is divided into two steps. Firstly, an adaptive tracking controller is designed for the dynamic leading vehicle. And then, the distributed adaptive controllers are established for followers. Moreover, the predictor technique is used to improve the estimate performance of the adaptive law, and the total disturbance is approximated and compensated by the variable gain nonlinear extended state observers (NESOs) driven by the estimation error. By introducing the variable gain hyperbolic tangent tracking differentiator (HTTD), the “complexity explosion” problem is avoided. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed protocol are verified by simulation tests.