Design of Adaptive Cruise Controllers for Externally Positive Vehicles

This paper addresses the design of adaptive cruise controllers for guaranteed collision avoidance. The design problem is solved with distributed feedback controllers which work with locally measurable quantities and, hence, do not require a centralised coordinating unit or a communication system. The design objectives are achieved by placing the closed-loop eigenvalues in a proposed set so that the controlled vehicle is asymptotically stable and satisfies a sufficient condition on external positivity.