Stability Analysis of Nonlinear Connected Vehicle Systems

In this paper, we investigate the nonlinear dynamics of connected vehicle systems. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is exploited when controlling the longitudinal motion of a few vehicles in the traffic flow. In order to achieve the desired system-level behavior, the plant stability and the head-to-tail string stability are characterized at the nonlinear level using Lyapunov functions. A motif-based approach is utilized that allows modular design for large-scale vehicle networks. Stability analysis of motifs are summarized using stability diagrams, which are validated by numerical simulations.