Summary: | This paper presents control algorithms enabling autonomous heterogeneous trucks to drive in platoons. Heterogeneous trucks imply that the hardware information (e.g., truck length, break, accelerator, or engine) of a truck may be distinct from that of another truck. A platoon is defined as a collection of trucks where a manually driven truck (leader truck) is followed by several automatically controlled following trucks. This paper is novel in presenting the longitudinal control of a truck platoon, as the trucks move along a curved lane as well as a straight lane. For a lateral maneuver, this paper proposes making every autonomous truck keep following the leader’s waypoints while maintaining a designated distance from its predecessor truck. This paper develops both a lateral maneuver and speed control considering a platoon of heterogeneous trucks. The efficiency of the proposed approach is verified using simulations.
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