Proceedings of the 2007 American Control Conference

Marriott Marquis Hotel at Times Square

New York City, USA, July 11-13, 2007

FrA14.4

Scalability in heterogeneous vehicle platoons

Ioannis Lestas and Glenn Vinnicombe
Department of Engineering
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB21TQ, UK
icl20,gv@eng.cam.ac.uk

Abstract It is known that vehicle platoons exhibit string

instability when each vehicle tries to maintain a fixed distance from its predecessor. This can be avoided if sufficiently
strong coupling with the leader is employed. If instead each
vehicle tracks the average distance form its neighbours, the
interconnection can still be ill-conditioned in the sense that the
response to disturbances is not uniformly bounded with the
size of the platoon. We show in the paper that in a symmetric
bidirectional scheme, arbitrarily weak coupling with the leader
can make the platoon scalable. In addition, we show that
despite the additional feedback in a bidirectional control law,
the symmetry of the information flow enables the derivation of
local conditions which, if satisfied, guarantee that an arbitrarily
long heterogeneous interconnection is robustly stable.

I. I NTRODUCTION
The problem considered in the paper is the control of
a platoon of vehicles such that there is a constant spacing
between consecutive vehicles and with all following a leader
vehicle that moves independently. As a result of applications
in automated highway systems the problem has received
considerable attention by the control community. A major
complication, however, in the analysis comes from the fact
that on the one hand the control law needs to be decentralized
and at the same time vehicle/controller dynamics contain
a double integrator. The latter can lead to ill-conditioned
behaviours when issues of scalability become important. For
example, in the simplest decentralized scheme where each
vehicle tracks a certain distance from its predecessor, it has
been shown in [1] that for any linear control law disturbances
are amplified as they propagate along the vehicle string.
This follows from a Bode like fundamental limitation for the
complementary sensitivity function [2], which holds when a
double integrator is present in the return ratio, thus forcing
the transfer function relating successive distance errors to
have infinity norm greater than one.
It is known that such error propagation can be avoided if
the distance from the leader is also used as part of the control
law, provided the coupling with the leader is sufficiently
strong such that the infinity norm of the error propagation
transfer function is less than one. It has also been shown in
[3] that for certain classes of systems and controllers, string
instability can be avoided without the use of leader following,
at the expense of successively more aggressive control laws
with linearly increasing gains.
In the paper we focus on symmetric bidirectional schemes,
i.e. control laws where each vehicle tracks the average

1-4244-0989-6/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE.

distance from its neighbours. In its purely decentralized

form (no leader information) this is ill conditioned in the
sense that the response to disturbances is not uniformly
bounded with the size of the platoon [1], [4]. We show in
the paper that with arbitrarily weak coupling with the leader,
the interconnection becomes scalable, i.e. the infinity norm
of the transfer function from disturbances to spacing errors
is uniformly bounded with the platoon size. In addition,
we relax the homogeneity assumption on the dynamics and
derive local conditions which, if satisfied, guarantee robust
stability of an arbitrarily long heterogeneous interconnection.
The main idea is that even though more feedback is employed in a bidirectional scheme, the underlying symmetry
in the way information is communicated, makes it feasible to
provide guarantees for the global behaviour with conditions
on the local interactions. This paradigm is also the central
property responsible for the scalability of Internet congestion
control models [5] where despite the heterogeneity, the
underlying symmetry dictated by TCP leads to robustness
results for arbitrary networks.
The paper is structured as follows. We give in section II
the problem formulation. In section III we discuss how leader
information makes a bidirectional scheme scalable, and in
section IV we derive local stability conditions for heterogeneous platoons. Examples are finally given to illustrate the
results derived.
II. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
A. Notation
The field of real and complex numbers are denoted by
R, C respectively. Rmn , Cmn are the m by n matrices with elements in the corresponding fields. C+ is the
closed right-half plane and R+ the closed set of positive
reals. (M) denotes the spectrum of a matrix M CNN ,
i (M) i = 1, . . . , N its eigenvalues, (M) its spectral radius
and (M), (M) its maximum and minimum singular values
respectively. |M| is the elementwise absolute value of the
matrix i.e. |[Mi j ]| := [|Mi j |]. Co(S) denotes the convex hull of
a set S and diag(xi ) the matrix with elements x1 , x2 , . . . on the
leading diagonal and zeros elsewhere. The summation of two
sets A C, B C is defined as A + B = {a + b : a A, b B}
and we denote the square of a set P C as the set of the
squares of its elements i.e. P2 = {p2 : p P}.
The Numerical Range of a matrix M Cnn is the
set N(M) := {v Mv : v Cn , v v = 1} . Note the property

4678

FrA14.4

(M) N(M) (e.g. [6]). H is the Hardy space of transfer

functions of stable, linear, time-invariant, continuous-time
systems. The transfer functions in the paper are restricted to
the class of functions with continuous coprime factorizations
in jR {} (this is a necessary condition for the Nyquist
stability criterion to be applicable).

where
E(s) = [E1 (s), . . . , EN (s)]T , D(s) = [E1 (s), . . . , EN (s)]T

RN , 1 = [1 0 . . . 0]T ,
1
1

Xi (s) = H(s) (Ui (s) + Di (s)) +

xi (0)
s

for 1 i N

(1)

...

1 2 1 0

0 1 2 1
L=
..
..
...
.
.

..

B. Problem Setup
We adopt the same formulation as in [1]. We consider an
array of N + 1 vehicles with positions denoted by xi (t), 0
i N, (x0 (t) is the leader position), and their Laplace transform Xi (s). In this section we assume that all vehicles have
identical dynamics with single-input-single-output transfer
function H(s) and use the same control law. The vehicles
want to maintain a fixed spacing distance > 0 and we also
assume that they start from rest with x0 (0) = 0, xi (0) = i .
In the Laplace domain the model of each vehicle is given
by

...
1

M=

So

1
..
.

..

..

...
...
..
.
..
.
1

0
..
.

(5)

1
1

E(s) = Gx0 e (s)X0 (s) + Gde (s)D(s)

where

where Ui (s) is the control input and Di (s) the input disturbance. We also denote the spacing error as ei (t) = xi1 (t)
xi (t) and its Laplace transform

Gx0 e (s) = [1 + P(s)L]1 1 , Gde (s) = P1 (s)[1 + P(s)L]1

H(s)Kp (s)
H(s)
, P1 (s) =
P(s) =
1 + H(s)Kl (s)
1 + H(s)Kl (s)

Ei (s) = Xi1 Xi (s) , 1 i N

s

III. S CALABILITY IN BIDIRECTIONAL CONTROL

(2)

We consider control action of the form



i
Ui (s) = Kp (s)(Ei (s) Ei+1 (s)) + Kl (s) X0 (s) Xi (s)
s
(3)
for 1 i < N ,



N
UN (s) = Kp (s)EN (s) + Kl (s) X0 (s) XN (s)
s

(4)

where H(s) has a double pole1 at s = 0 and no other poles

in C+ and Kp (s) H , Kl (s) H and have no pole/zero
cancellations with H(s) in C+ . Then from (1), (2), (3) we
get
Ei (s) =H(s)Kp (s)[Ei1 (s) + Ei+1 (s) 2Ei (s)]
H(s)Kl (s)Ei (s) + H(s)[Di1 (s) Di (s)]

It is shown in this section that information about the

leader position can make kGde (s)k , kGx0 e (s)k uniformly
bounded with the platoon size. In fact, it is shown that this
can be achieved with arbitrarily weak coupling with the
leader(kKl (s)k arbitrarily small) for any robustly stabilizing
bidirectional control Kp (s).
The following lemma is based on ideas in [7] (an analogous version also appears in [4]).
Lemma 1: An interconnection of N vehicles is stable if
1
H (L), and P1 (s) H
1 + P(s)
Proof: Since L is symmetric U RNN , U unitary,
such that L = UU T where = diag(i ) , 1 , . . . N are the
eigenvalues of L. Now


1
UT
[I + P(s)L]1 = U[I + P(s)]1U T = Udiag
1 + i P(s)

So Gx0 e (s) H . Since P1 (s) H this also implies that

Gde (s) H .
Now let P := N { (L) : N = 1, 2, . . .} and denote its closure
by P. Note that a Gershgorin disc bound on the eigenvalues
of L [6] (this holds for all N), implies that P [0, 4].
Lemma 2: Consider the interconnection in (1)-(3) and let
Kp (s), Kl (s) be such that

for 1 i N ,
Ei (s) =H(s)Kp (s)[Ei1 (s) 2Ei (s)]
H(s)Kl (s)Ei (s) + H(s)[Di1 (s) Di (s)]
for i = N , or in matrix form this can be written as
E(s) = H(s)Kp (s)LE(s) H(s)Kl (s)E(s) + H(s)MD(s)
+ 1 X0 (s)
1 The

1
1+

loopgains H(s)K p (s), H(s)Kl (s) are assumed to have a double pole
at s = 0 and this is assigned to H(s) as in [1], for convenience in the
presentation.

H(s)K p (s)
1+H(s)Kl (s)

H P,

H(s)
H
1 + H(s)Kl (s)

then M1 > 0, M2 > 0 such that kGx0 e (s)k < M1 ,

kGde (s)k < M2 for all N {1, 2, . . .} .

4679

FrA14.4
Proof: From Lemma 1 the conditions in the Theorem imply that the interconnection is stable N. Hence
Gx0 e , Gde H and for given L.
1
2 (I + P( j )L)

R
1
= sup
[(I
+
P(
j
min

)L)(I
+ P ( j )L )]
i
i
R
1
= sup

2 2
R mini i [I + (P( j ) + P ( j ))L + |P( j )| L ]
1
= sup
( j )) (L) + |P( j )|2 (L)2 ]
min
[1
+
(P(
j

)
+
P
i
i
i
R
1
= sup
2
R mini |1 + P( j )i (L)|

k[I + P(s)L]1 k2 = sup

IV. ROBUST STABILITY OF HETEROGENEOUS PLATOONS

The conditions in the Lemma imply

1
/ { P( j ) : {R }, P} =: F
By continuity of the frequency response on the compactified
real line, F is a compact set, hence > 0 such that
f F |1 + f | > , therefore k[I + P(s)L]1 k 1 . Since
also P1 (s) H both kGde (s)k , kGx0 e (s)k are uniformly
bounded with N.
Remark 1: Uniform boundedness of kGx0 e (s)k is lost
when there is no leader information (Kl (s) = 0) since
|P( j )| as 0 and also its phase tends to . Hence
for sufficiently small P( j ) can be arbitrarily close to
1 (note also analysis in [4]).
The Theorem below shows that if the bidirectional control
Kp (s) is such that there is a finite stability margin then uniform boundedness of kGde (s)k , kGx0 e (s)k can be achieved
with arbitrarily weak coupling with the leader.
Theorem 1: Given Kp (s) H such that
> 0 with

1
H (P + (0, ))
1 + H(s)Kp (s)
(6)

then > 0 Kl (s) H , M1 > 0, M2 > 0 such that

kKl (s)k < and kGx0 e (s)k < M1 , kGde (s)k < M2 for all
N {1, 2, . . .} .
1
H P is a necessary
Remark 2: 1+ H(s)K
p (s)
condition for stability of the platoon with no leader information (Kl (s) = 0). Therefore condition (6) in the Theorem
requires an arbitrarily small stability margin. This is easy to
verify by noting that P [0, 4].
Proof: Choose Kl (s) = kKp (s) s.t. kKp (s)k < and
1
1+

H(s)K p (s)
1+kH(s)K p (s)

1 + kH(s)Kp (s)
H
1 + ( + k)H(s)Kp (s)

The proof then follows in analogy with Lemma 2 to

show that kGde (s)k , kGx0 e (s)k are uniformly bounded
with N i.e. M1 > 0, M2 > 0 such that kGx0 e (s)k < M1 ,
kGde (s)k < M2 for all N {1, 2, . . .} .

P,

H(s)
H
1 + kH(s)Kp (s)
Such a k always exists from the following argument. The
smallest eigenvalue of L , 1 (L) 0 as N [4]. So by
choosing k = 1 (L) k can be made arbitrarily small for a
large enoughn N. A suitable
o k = 1 (L) is one that satisfies

0 < k < min , kKp (s)k .

In this section we relax the homogeneity assumption on

the vehicle dynamics and control laws in the platoon. In a
bidirectional scheme this adds additional complication in the
analysis since the underlying graph is strongly connected i.e.
each vehicle (apart from the leader) is indirectly coupled with
some feedback loop with all other vehicles. We show below
that the symmetry of the information flow makes it possible
to derive local conditions which, if satisfied, guarantee robust
stability of an arbitrarily long heterogeneous interconnection.
The problem formulation is the same as in section III with
the dynamics of the ith vehicle Hi (s) and the control laws
Kpi (s), Kli (s) not being necessarily the same. Note, however,
that because of this heterogeneity, spacing error can no
longer be written as a function of only other spacing errors
and the leader position. In the Laplace domain the position
of the ith vehicle is given by
Xi (s) = Hi (s) (Ui (s) + Di (s)) +

xi (0)
s

for 1 i N

(7)

and the control input



i
Ui (s) = Kpi (s)(Ei (s) Ei+1 (s)) + Kli (s) X0 (s) Xi (s)
s
(8)
for 1 i < N ,



N
UN (s) = KpN (s)EN (s) + KlN (s) X0 (s) XN (s)
(9)
s

In matrix form this can be written as




X(s) = diag(Pi (s)) LX(s) 1 X0 (s) + N

s
+ diag(P1i (s))D(s) + diag(P2i (s))X 0 (s)
where
Pi (s) =

Hi (s)Kpi (s)
1 + Hi (s)Kli (s)
P2i (s) =

P1i (s) =

Hi (s)
,
1 + Hi (s)Kli (s)

Hi (s)Kli (s)
,
1 + Hi (s)Kli (s)




i
N T
X 0 (s) = X0 (s) , . . . , X0 (s) , . . . , X0 (s)
s
s
s

L is as in (5) with L11 = 2, LNN = 1 and N = [0 . . . 0 1]T .

So
h

X(s) = [I + diag(Pi (s))L]1 P1 (s)1 X0 (s) PN (s)N

si
i
i
+ diag(P1 (s))D(s) + diag(P2 (s))X 0 (s)

Theorem 2 (based on Lemma 3) gives local conditions that

guarantee stability of an arbitrarily long interconnection. We
first denote di the in-degree of each vehicle, i.e. di = 2 for
1 i < N, dN = 1 and let Din = diag(di ).

4680

FrA14.4
Lemma 3: ([8]) Let Q Cnn , Q = Q 0 and G =
diag(gi ), gi C, i {1, . . . n}. Then

(GQ) (Q)Co(0 {gi : i {1, . . . , n}})

Proof: {0} (GQ) = {0} (Q1/2 GQ1/2 ). But
(Q1/2 GQ1/2 ) N(Q1/2 GQ1/2 )

1/2

1/2

achieved by rewriting the return ratio as shown below

Xi (s) =

:= {v Q GQ v : v C , kvk = 1}
(Q){w Gw : w Cn , kwk 1}
n

i=1

i=1

1
(Xi1 + Xi+1 )
1 + Hi (2Kpi (s) + Kli (s)) 2
|
{z
}
P3i

2Hi Kpi (s)

Hi (s)
Di (s) + P5i (s)Kli (s)(X0 i )
| {z }
1 + Hi (2Kpi (s) + Kli (s))
|
{z
}
Pi
4

P5i

for 1 i < N, and

= (Q){ |wi |2 gi : wi C, |wi |2 1}

= (Q)Co(0 {gi : i = 1, . . . , n})
Theorem 2: The interconnection in (7)(9) is stable for all
N if P1i (s) H i and



1
/ R+ Co {2di Pi ( j ) : i = 1, . . . , N} 0
(10)
Remark 3: The conditions in the theorem are decentralized. This can be seen by means of a duality argument.
Requiring the convex hull of the frequency responses and
zero not to include the point 1 is equivalent to requiring
each of the frequency responses to lie to the right of a
hyperplane through the point 1. This hyperplane can be
frequency dependent since we are taking the union of the
convex hulls over frequency.
Also the distance of each frequency response from the
hyperplane gives a measure of robustness i.e. it is guaranteed
that the system will remain stable for an additive perturbation (s) H in Pi (s), with H norm smaller than this
corresponding distance.
Proof: (of Theorem 2) It is sufficient to show that the
eigenloci of the return ratio diag(Pi (s))L do not encircle the
point 1. Now diag(Pi (s))L is similar to diag(2di Pi (s))M
where M = (2Din )1/2 L(2Din )1/2 . A Gershgorin disc
bound on the eigenvalues of (2Din )1 L shows that M 0,
(M) 1. Therefore since also M = M T , we have from
Lemma 3


(diag(2di Pi ( j ))L) Co {2di Pi ( j ) : i = 1, . . . , N} 0



HN KpN

XN1
XN (s) =
1 + HN (KpN + KpN )
s
|
{z
}
P3N

HN (s)
DN (s) + KlN (s)P5N (s)(X0 N )
{z
}
|
1 + HN (KpN (s) + KlN (s))
|
{z
}
PN
4

P5N

or in matrix form

h
i
X(s) = diag(P3i (s))(Din )1 AX(s) + 1 X0 (s) N
s
+ diag(P4i (s))X 0 (s) + diag(P5i (s))D(s)
where

A=
0
.
.

0
..
.

1
..
.
..
.

.
0

...
..

0
..
.

..

.
1

...

1
0

Note that A is the adjacency matrix of the underlying graph,

i.e. Ai j = 1 if vehicle i communicates with vehicle j and 0
otherwise. Theorem 3 makes use of Lemma 4 which is based
on the S-hull, a relaxation of the convex hull of a set in C.
Definition 1 (S-hull): Let P C. The S-hull of set P is
defined as

where
P := {x : x2 P}
S(P) := (Co( P))2
1

Now

0.5

(11)

is a set which is star shaped with respect to zero2 . Therefore

the fact that it does not include the point 1 also ensures that
it does not encircle it. Note also that due to the symmetry of
the Nyquist plot about the real axis, it is sufficient to check
that 1 is not included in the set in (11) with the union taken
only over positive frequencies, as in the Theorem.
Potentially less conservative stability certificates can be
obtained by deriving conditions that involve products of
frequency responses of neighbouring dynamics. This can be
2 A set P C is star shaped with respect to point x P if for any p P
0
the line segment between p and x0 is in P, i.e. {tx0 +(1t)p : t [0, 1]} P

Im[z]




R Co {2di Pi ( j ) : i = 1, . . . , N} 0

0.5

1
0.5

Fig. 1.

0.5

Re[z]

1.5

2.5

The convex hull and Shull of four points (denoted with circles).

It can be shown [9] that the S-hull S(P) of a set P C

is always a convex set that includes zero (see example in

4681

FrA14.4
figure 1). Its importance lies in the fact that it can be used to
bound the spectrum of a product of matrices with a particular
structure by means of non zero elements of those matrices.
Lemma 4: ([9]) Let R Cmn satisfy (|R|T |R|) 1, and
G = diag(g1 , . . . , gn ), F = diag( f1 , . . . , fm ), gi , f j C i, j
then

(Gde ( j ))

N=50

15

10

(FRGR ) Co ({ fi S({gk : Rik 6= 0}) : i = 1, . . . , m})

Theorem 3: The interconnection in (7)(9) is stable if
P5i (s) H i and


1
/ R+ Co i:i{1,...,N},i odd S({P3i ( j )P3j ( j ) : Ai j 6= 0})
(12)
Proof: Note first that the underlying graph is bipartite
since vehicles with an odd(even) index communicate only
with vehicles with an even(odd) index. So by permuting
the rows
of A, this can be brought to an antidiagonal form

0 A1
A= T
where A1 is 0 1 matrix with its rows and
A1 0
columns indexed by the odd and even vehicles respectively.
Similarly let diag(P3i (s)) = diag(G1 (s), G2 (s)) where G1 (s) =
diag({P3i (s) : i odd}), G2 (s) = diag({P3i (s) : i even}) and
Din = diag(D1in , D2in ), D1in (s) = diag({di : i odd}), D2in (s) =
diag({di : i even}). Now the return ratio is

N=6
5

N=2
0
2
10

(Gde ( j ))

10

(rad/s)

10

10

k=0.5

N=50

N=6

1.5
N=2
1

0.5

0
2
10

10

(rad/s)

10

10

k=1

N=6
N=50

(Gde ( j ))

0.8
N=2

0.6

G2 (s)

and

2.5

L(s) :=diag(P3i (s))(Din )1 A

0
G1 (s)(D1in )1 A1
|
{z
}

G
(s)
1

G2 (s)(D2 )1 AT
0
in
1

|
{z
}

det(I L(s)) = det(I G1 (s)A1 G2 (s)AT1 )

k=0.1

20

0.4

hence

0.2

1
/ (kG1 ( j )AG2 ( j )A ) k [0, 1]

0
2
10

1
/ (kL( j )) k [0, 1]

Note that G1 (s)A1 G2 (s)AT1 is similar to G1 (s)RG2 (s)RT

where R = (D1in )1/2 A1 (D2in )1/2 and (|R||R|T ) 1 since

10

(rad/s)

10

10

Fig. 2. (Gde ( j )) for a control law Kl (s) = kK p (s) for k = 0.1, 0.5, 1
and with N = 2, 6, 10, . . . , 50.

(|R||R|T ) = ((D1in )1 A1 (D2in )1 AT1 )

k(D1in )1 A1 k k(D2in )1 AT1 k 1

V. E XAMPLES

Hence from Lemma 4, the bounding set in (12) is a bound

for the spectrum of G1 ( j )AG2 ( j )AT R+ and is also
star shaped with respect to zero as the S-hull always includes
the point 0. So 1
/ (kL( j )) k [0, 1], R. Therefore
the eigenloci do not encircle the point 1 and the system is
stable from the multivariable Nyquist criterion [10].
Corollary 1: The interconnection in (7)(9) is stable if
P5i (s) H i and
!
1
/

R+

Co

i:i{1,...,N},i even

S({P3i ( j )P3j ( j ) : Ai j 6= 0})

Proof: The proof is the same as in Theorem 3 but with

the rows and columns of A1 indexed by the even and odd
vehicles respectively.

Figure 2 shows an example of a bidirectional control

scheme with
2s + 1
1
Kp (s) =
(13)
H(s) = 2
s (0.1s + 1)
0.05s + 1
and Kl (s) = kKp (s). As expected, kGde k is uniformly
bounded with the size of platoon for all k > 0. In addition
better disturbance rejection properties are observed with a
stronger coupling with the leader position (larger k). If,
on the other hand, only predecessor following was used
with the same controller, then the transfer function between
H(s)K p (s)
successive spacing errors is T (s) = 1+H(s)Kp (s)(1+k)
and error
amplification is avoided (kT (s)k < 1) only for k > 0.19.
Figure 3 gives an example that illustrates how the convex
hull condition in Theorem 2 can be applied to guarantee

4682

0.4

0.2
0

Im[z]

Im[4Pi ( j )]

FrA14.4

2
3

0.4
0.6

0.8

5
6
2

0.2

Re[4Pi ( j )]

1.2
1

0.5

Fig. 4. P33 ( j )P34 ( j ), R+ (solid line) and S({P33 ( j )P3 ( j ) : A3 j 6=

0}), R+ .

Im[4Pi ( j )]

0.5

Re[z]

R+ S({P3i ( j )P3j ( j ) : Ai j 6= 0}) for i = 3 and note that

this does not include the point 1. For stability it is sufficient
that the for all odd i, the set above does not intersect a line
through the point 1 (as in Remark 3) .

2
3
4
5
6
2

Re[4Pi ( j )]


Fig. 3. R+ Co {4Pi ( j ) : i = 1, . . . , 5} 0
with = 13 , 21 , 1, 2, 3
2s+1
for each i respectively. In plot on top K p (s) = 0.05s+1 and in second plot
2 s+1
K p (s) = 12 0.05
s+1 .

stability of a heterogeneous interconnection. We consider

vehicles with varying actuation lag i.e.
H(s) =

1
s2 (0.1 s + 1)

, >0

We initially use the same controller as in (13) with

Kp (s) = Kl (s). The top plot in figure 3 (solid lines)
shows the Nyquist plot of 4Pi ( j ) for R+ , i =
H ( j )K i ( j )

1, 2, . . . , 5 where Pi ( j ) = 1+Hi ( j )Kp i ( j ) and = 31 , 12 , 1, 2, 3

i
p
for each Hi (s) respectively.
The thinner line indicates
Co {4Pi ( j ) : i = 1, . . . , 5} 0 at each frequency. Note that
the union of the convex hulls does not include the point 1
so the interconnection is stable from Theorem 2. In fact, a
more informative design would be to reduce the gain of the
controller as the lag increases and also add the phase lead
at lower frequencies. The second plot in figure 3 illustrates
2 s+1
such an approach with Kp (s) = 12 0.05
s+1 . Note that the five
Nyquist plots are on top of one another (though they are
shifted in frequency) and much better stability margins can
be guaranteed since the distance of their convex hull from
the point 1 is greater. As also mentioned in Remark 3,
stability of an arbitrarily long heterogeneous interconnection
can be guaranteed by choosing a line through the point 1
and ensuring that the each of the 4Pi ( j ) does not intersect
this line.
Figure 4 shows how Theorem 3 can be used to certify stability in the same example (we use Kp (s) =
1 2 s+1
and Kl (s) = 0.3Kp (s)). The plot illustrates
2 0.05 s+1

VI. C ONCLUSIONS
It has been shown in the paper that arbitrarily weak
coupling with the leader makes a symmetric bidirectional
scheme for the control of a platoon of vehicles scalable,
i.e. the response to disturbances is uniformly bounded with
the size of the platoon. In addition the symmetry of the
interconnections can be exploited to relax the homogeneity
assumption on the dynamics and derive local conditions,
which, if satisfied, guarantee stability of an arbitrarily long
heterogeneous interconnection. This is an example that illustrates how by incorporating symmetries in underlying
protocols can lead to large scale heterogeneous networks
which are robust and scalable.
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