# Decentralized 2-D Control of Vehicular Platoons under Limited Visual Feedback

## TL;DR

This paper presents a decentralized control method for 2-D vehicular platoons using only local visual feedback from cameras, ensuring collision avoidance and stable formation without velocity measurements.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel decentralized 2-D control protocol based solely on local visual information, with guaranteed collision avoidance and performance decoupled from platoon size.

## Key findings

- Effective control achieved in simulations with WEBOTS
- Collision avoidance and connectivity maintained
- Transient and steady-state responses are predictable

## Abstract

In this paper, we consider the two dimensional (2-D) predecessor-following control problem for a platoon of unicycle vehicles moving on a planar surface. More specifically, we design a decentralized kinematic control protocol, in the sense that each vehicle calculates its own control signal based solely on local information regarding its preceding vehicle, by its on-board camera, without incorporating any velocity measurements. Additionally, the transient and steady state response is a priori determined by certain designer-specified performance functions and is fully decoupled by the number of vehicles composing the platoon and the control gains selection. Moreover, collisions between successive vehicles as well as connectivity breaks, owing to the limited field of view of cameras, are provably avoided. Finally, an extensive simulation study is carried out in the WEBOTS realistic simulator, clarifying the proposed control scheme and verifying its effectiveness.