Researchers propose a distributed platoon controller for unsignalized intersections, aiming to guarantee both safety and smoothness as multiple vehicles cross. The work is Part I of a study focused on stability analysis, and it is available on arXiv.
A key design choice is to model the platoon maneuvering along a closed path with a single unsignalized intersection. The authors argue that traditional bi-level designs on open paths separate intersection control from platoon convergence, which complicates rigorous analysis. The closed-path setting lets them analyze the asymptotic behavior of the platoon and prove local exponential convergence of the switched closed-loop system.
Under mild conditions on controller gains, the analysis shows that safe crossing is ensured during the transient phase, while steady state achieves smooth crossing with all vehicles traveling at a common constant speed and avoiding collisions. The controller was validated in a high-fidelity CARLA simulator using multiple commercial vehicle models.
Since only one source was provided, there are no differing findings to compare. The paper itself notes that this is Part I, suggesting future work will address additional aspects of the control problem.