The development of autonomous connected vehicles, moving as a platoon formation, is a hot topic in the intelligent transportation system (ITS) research field. It is on the road and deployment requires the design of distributed control strategies, leveraging secure vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). Indeed, wireless communication networks can be affected by various security vulnerabilities and cyberattacks leading to dangerous implications for cooperative driving safety. Control design can play an important role in providing both resilience and robustness to vehicular networks. To this aim, in this article, we tackle and solve the problem of cyber-secure tracking for a platoon that moves as a cohesive formation along a single lane undergoing different kinds of cyber threats, that is, application layer and network layer attacks, as well as network induced phenomena. The proposed cooperative approach leverages an adaptive synchronization-based control algorithm that embeds a distributed mitigation mechanism of malicious information. The closed-loop stability is analytically demonstrated by using the Lyapunov-Krasovskii theory, while its effectiveness in coping with the most relevant type of cyber threats is disclosed by using PLEXE, a high fidelity simulator which provides a realistic simulation of cooperative driving systems.

The paper addresses the leader tracking problem for a platoon of connected autonomous vehicles in the presence of both homogeneous time-varying parameter uncertainties and Vehicle-to-Vehicle time-varying communication delay. To this aim, leveraging the Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) framework, a novel distributed robust PID control is proposed. The stability of the cohesive formation is analytically proved with a Lyapunov-Krasovskii approach by exploiting the descriptor transformation for time-delayed systems of neutral type. The delay-dependent robust stability conditions are expressed as a set of Linear Matrix Inequalities allowing the proper tuning of the proportional, integral and derivative actions implemented on each of the vehicles within the fleet. Extensive simulation analysis in different driving scenarios confirms the effectiveness of the theoretical derivation.

The improvement of energy performance for platoons of autonomous connected vehicles is one of the major challenges the road transport sector is facing with. To this aim, this work addresses and solves the energy-consumption problem for uncertain heterogeneous electric nonlinear autonomous vehicles platoon via a novel Eco-Driving Control Architecture able to optimize its energy consumption performance while ensuring the fulfillment of the optimal leader tracking trajectory. Specifically, it consists of a Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) strategy, driving the leader motion and computing the optimal ecological trajectory to be imposed on the whole platoon, and a novel distributed exponentially-stable robust PID-like protocol, driving the follower vehicles motion for achieving a precise leader-tracking with a desired transient behavior as required for the accurate implementation of the energy-saving control. The exponential stability of the overall vehicular network is analytically proven with the Lyapunov theory and the derived robust stability conditions allow the proper tuning of the control gains on the basis of the desired decay rate. The efficiency of the proposed approach is corroborated via the high-fidelity Mixed Traffic Simulator (MiTraS) co-simulation platform under different operative scenarios and a wide uncertainty range for the vehicles parameters. Simulation results confirm how the proposed architecture ensures the eco-driving behaviour for the whole vehicles platoon.

Virtual Coupling adds to Automatic Train Control (ATC) systems the further functionality of being able to virtually connect two or more trains, so drastically reducing their headways and increasing line capacity. For this reason it is considered among the most relevant innovations to be researched within the European Horizon 2020 Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking. Indeed, Virtual Coupling also introduces some critical issues related to potential hazards as well as strict requirements on tolerated latency associated to the channels used for train-to-trackside and train-to-train communications. In this paper, we introduce Virtual Coupling in the context of a standard ATC, that is ERTMS/ETCS. Considering a reference ATC simplifies the discussion about implementation and performance issues. We will provide some preliminary hints, models and results and draw conclusions about required safety analyses and future developments.