An adaptive cooperative adaptive cruise control against varying vehicle loads*

In this paper, a universal CACC is proposed to accommodate the fact that vehicle load changes from time to time. The same vehicle could weigh differently when hauling a different number of passengers or moving a different amount of cargo. To achieve this, a dynamic matrix control-based approach is designed. The proposed controller is formulated in space domain to take advantage of the historical information of the leader to improve control accuracy and stability. It was evaluated on a Carsim-Prescan integrated simulation platform. Sensitivity analysis was conducted in terms of speed and vehicle load. Results confirm that the same proposed controller is able to maintain string stability while handling varying speeds and vehicle loads.