International Journal of Research in Engineering and Science (IJRES) ISSN (Online): 2320-9364, ISSN (Print): 2320-9356 www.ijres.org Volume 1 Issue 4 ǁ August 2013 ǁ PP.01-10 www.ijres.org 1 | Page Controller Gain Tuning For Road Vehicle Convoy System Using Model Reference Adaptive Control Method Aveen Uthman 1 , Shahdan Sudin 2 1 (Faculty of Electrical Engineering/ UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia, Malaysia) 2 (Faculty of Electrical Engineering/ UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia, Malaysia) ABSTRACT: In convoy system, the control system on each vehicle requires information about proceeding vehicle motion, in order to maintain stability and satisfy operating constraints. A two-vehicle look-ahead control strategy is proposed and investigated for the operation of a convoy. The mathematical modeling for this control strategy has been found and simulated. This paper demonstrates the design process of an adaptive controller gain for a road vehicle convoy system. This process is done by simulation. The appropriate constants are used as the reference model for the adaptive controller implementation to find the effectiveness of the control. As a result, a road vehicle convoy system with an adaptive gain controller is produced. Keywords - two-vehicle look-ahead control strategy, model reference adaptive control, gradient approach. I. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, problems related to traffic congestion is dressed as issue which has to be considered. Since this issue continuously causes many accidents, traffic jams and so on. Convoys or platoons has been introduced and developed rapidly in order to overcome the collision. One of the matter which has to be taken into careful consideration in road convoy system formulation is the speed and the spacing if the following vehicle with respect to the preceding vehicle. It is important to maintain some safe distance between the following vehicle and preceding vehicle at any speed in convoy system in order to avoid any collision between both of them. Sensors are used to measure the speed and the position of the proceeding vehicle instead of estimating the information by the driver. The information which has been gotten by the sensor is used and processed by the following vehicle controller to produce the amount required speed and safe spacing distance. In autonomous control approach, safe distance can be ensured automatically controller based on the information obtained from the preceding vehicle. The autonomous controller on the following vehicle has the ability of activating of the vehicle cruise control mode.in this case it does not need to hold the steering nor press the fuel pedal by the driver, and automatically apply the brake when necessary in order to ensure the safety of the vehicle. In fact, research in vehicle convoy has attracted the attention of several researchers in the past decades, particularly in the USA and Europe where safety, energy consumption and traffic congestions are the primary motivators. Major contributions are from the Chauffeur Project (Europe), the PATH program (USA), the Intelligent Transportation System program in Japan and the Cyber Car project in France. [1,2]In developed nations, the autonomous concept leads to the Intelligent Vehicle Highway System (IVHS).As a vehicle enters the highway, his vehicle automatically takes-over the control of the vehicle while following the preceding vehicle. This feature also gives rise to steering less technology where during the autonomous control in action, the driver does not need to hold the steering wheel. All the driving tasks are taken care by the vehicle intelligent system. One of the autonomous features is the adaptive type control based on certain control strategy which gives rise to adaptive cruise control (ACC). An ACC controlled vehicle will follow the front vehicle at a safe distance. A Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) can be used in this type of control where the vehicle controller has the ability to adapt to the variation of speed and position of the preceding vehicle.[1] Figure1. Diagram of a road vehicle convoy system