Stability Properties of Interconnected Vehicles

Abstract The paper presents a methodology for analyzing the stability of formations of interconnected vehicles that are based on leader-follower relations. The methodology exploits input-to-state stability properties of basic leader-follower interconnections and builds on the propagation of these properties throughout the network to establish global stability bounds. This is formalized using the notion of (formation ISS), a weaker form of stability than string or mesh stability, which relates leader input(s) to formation state errors. In this paper we focus on cyclic interconnections of vehicles and show how the ISS framework can be extended to include these structures.