Comparison of a linear and a hybrid adaptive cruise controller for a SMART

An adaptive cruise controller (ACC) is a device used in modern automotive applications that aims to achieve the tracking of a leading vehicle, allowing safety, comfort driving and overall improvement of traffic streams. Through appropriate modeling and design it permits also to address other tasks such as energy saving, environmental protection and reduction of the mechanical stress. For a type of small car, a Smart, we propose the design of an ACC using control methods based on tuned proportional-integral (PI) action and on model predictive control (MPC), developed for linear and piecewise affine (PWA) systems. We implement these controllers and compare the main properties and strong/weak points of each method, collecting the comparison keys in a table. The trade-off between complexity and accuracy of the solutions is also discussed.