Optimal hybrid strategy in adaptive cruise control system for enhanced autonomous vehicle stability and safety

The adaptive cruise control system relies heavily on the vehicle's longitudinal control algorithm. Traditional longitudinal control algorithms typically depend on precise vehicle dynamic modeling or complex controller parameter calibrations. In the research, an optimal hybrid strategy for the control of basic adaptive cruise control system is proposed. The proposed hybrid strategy is the combination of both the Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Coati Optimization Algorithm (COA) and hence it is named as MPC-COA strategy. The fundamental goal of the proposed work is that a vehicle should maintain its current velocity when it approaches another vehicle that is driving at a steady velocity. The inputs for the proposed strategy are vehicle speed and acceleration. The inter-vehicle distance error, velocity error and acceleration are regulated based on the upper and lower limit of acceleration command with the help of proposed strategy. For accomplishing the required steadiness with the limitations in the given input and actual velocity with constant previous vehicle velocity, the proposed controller is utilized. The proposed controller is used to control the traction force of the host vehicle such that the vehicle speed follows the optimal speed trajectory as good as possible while ensuring constraints like distance to a preceding vehicle or speed limits. The performance of the proposed is implemented in the MATLAB platform and compared with existing approaches. The proposed technique demonstrates superior performance metrics, achieving the collision rate, rate of reaching maximum deceleration and ratio of exceeding comfortable deceleration or jerk are 1.27 %, 3.131 % and 9.052 %, respectively.