Sliding mode control based on tracking differentiator for intelligent vehicle headway distance control

Vehicle following for traffic safety has been an active area of research. During manual driving, most human drivers often use information about the speed and position of the preceding vehicles in order to adjust the position and speed of their vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to design an autonomous intelligent cruise control (AICC) which mimics this human driving behavior. The proposed AICC law uses relative speed , relative acceleration and spacing information from the preceding vehicles in order to choose the proper control action for smooth vehicle following and for maintaining a desired inter vehicle spacing. In this paper, a new sliding mode control approach based on tracking differentiator is proposed for intelligent vehicle headway distance control. Tracking-differentiator is designed to provide acceleration information as the control parameter and enhances the response characteristic of the control system. Theoretical analysis and computer simulation prove that the designed linear tracking-differentiator can supply the relative acceleration information for sliding mode control and sliding mode control based on tracking differentiator approach can effectively control intelligent vehicle headway distance.