Adaptive Platoon Control of Heterogeneous Vehicles With Extended State Observer and Modified Constant Time Headway Policy

This paper focuses on the problem of adaptive platoon tracking control in the presence of uncertainties and external disturbances. A distributed platoon control strategy with active disturbance rejection is developed, utilizing an extended state observer (ESO) along with a modified constant time headway policy (CTHP). Firstly, an ESO is constructed to estimate external disturbances. Subsequently, a modified CTHP is employed to mitigate excessive transient response induced by non-zero initial spacing. This approach thereby eliminates the need for the zero-velocity assumption and resolves the issue of initial spacing errors. Finally, a series of simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed control scheme.