Collision-free control strategy for on-ramp merging: A spatial-dependent constraint following approach

Abstract This paper focuses on the problem of on-ramp merging control under the cooperation of intelligent and connected vehicles. A decentralized collision-free control strategy is proposed for on-ramp merging control. Each vehicle in the virtual platoon constructed by all vehicles on the arterial road and the on-ramp is equipped with a spatial-dependent constraint following controller. Under nonlinear vehicle dynamics, the proposed controller is proved to be uniformly bounded, thus assuring that each vehicle can satisfy the safety requirements to avoid collision at any specific spatial location, especially at the most dangerous merging point. Compared with time-dependence, this spatial-dependence means much more stability because spatial conditions during the on-ramp merging process are more static and invariant. Finally, a simulation containing six vehicles with relatively extreme testing conditions is conduct to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the spacing errors can converge to 0 with respect to varying spatial-dependent desired spacings. The spacing errors of the six vehicles are kept at a relatively low level with a maximum value of 3.0778m. The maximal acceleration is 0.6060 m/s 2 and the maximal deceleration is -1.4042 m/s 2. All vehicles can achieve collision-free safety for on-ramp merging with a smooth and non-saturated control input generated by the proposed controller.