Adaptive Cruise Control
Abstract
After a generic description of the ADAS, what cruise control and adaptive cruise control consists
of will be quickly described. The aim is to initially implement a first-level controller based on 𝐻2
and 𝐻∞ to be able to evaluate its performance using simulink. Once this is done, a second level
controller will be implemented using the driving toolbox offered by matlab which allows the
simulation of the sensors necessary for the purpose.
Introduction
An advanced driver-assistance system
(ADAS) is any of a group of electronic
technologies that assist drivers in driving
and parking functions. ADAS uses
automated technology, such as sensors and
camera, to avoid human error and
increasing in this way the road safety. Safety
features are in fact designed to avoid
crashes and collisions by offering
technology that alert the driver,
implementing safeguard or taking the
control if necessary. In this work is described
the Cruise control and how it works.
Cruise control is an electronic system that
allows automatic adjustment of the pace or
speed of a car or other vehicle. The driver
selects the desired speed, and it is
maintained, compatibly with the trim
conditions of the car itself. There are two
types of cruise control:
• Cruise control
• Adaptive cruise control
The first one only maintains the speed set by
the driver. The driver can choose to increase
or decrease the set speed by pressing two
buttons. Furthermore, the driver can, for
example if he decides to overtake another
car, press the accelerator pedal, and
increase the speed which will return to the
previously set one only when he stops
accelerating.
The second can also reduce the set speed if
there are obstacles in front of the car. The
driver can set the distance to keep from the
cars in front of him within a certain safety
margin. This system provides for the
presence of a radar which is usually
mounted in front of the vehicle; with safety
distance monitoring (Forward Alert) which
warns the driver if he is getting too close to
the vehicle in front. In some car models, the
system even brakes by itself, via the
automatic braking system with pre-collision
assistance and pedestrian recognition.
Cruise control
The purpose of cruise control is to maintain
the desired speed value and to do this a first
level control is implemented, i.e., the
desired acceleration is calculated.
Given the following model, where the
variable x is the longitudinal position of the
vehicle, that can be measured with some
sensor:
1
𝑥̈ = ⟺ 𝜏𝑥̈ + 𝑥̈ = 𝑥̈ 𝑑𝑒𝑠
𝜏𝑠 + 1
That means that the desired acceleration is
used as input of the control. It is assumed
that the vehicle follows the desired
acceleration with a time constant of:
𝜏 = 0.5 𝑠𝑒𝑐
so, the relationship between input and
output is expressed by:
1
𝑥̇ = 𝑢
𝑠(𝜏𝑠 + 1)
Assuming:
 𝑥1 𝑎
[ 2 ] = [𝑣 ]
𝑥
𝑥3 𝑝
It is obtained:
1 1
𝑥̇ 1 − 0 0 𝑥1
[𝑥̇ 2 ] = [ 𝜏 1 0] [𝑥2 ] = [𝜏 ] 𝑢
1 0
𝑥̇ 3 0 0 𝑥3
0 0
Before implementing the matrices for the
chosen control, it is necessary to remember
that the state must include the speed error.
Fig 1.1. System response
𝑯∞ control
with 𝐻∞ controller feedback
To implement the 𝐻∞ control it is build a
𝑯𝟐 control
script. We must consider the original
matrices of the system, which are rewritten It was also chosen to implement a solution
to consider the speed error. Finally, it is based on 𝐻2 to verify the differences in
possible to write the variable of the system performance. Before moving on to the
and write also the LMI related to the Simulink simulation, the LMI necessary to
𝐻∞ control: solve the problem 𝐻2 are therefore
introduced in the 𝐻2 .m matlab function as
min 𝛾∞
𝑥,𝑦 follows:
𝑠. 𝑡

(𝐴𝑥 + 𝐵1 𝑌) + (𝐴𝑥 + 𝐵1 𝑌)𝑇 𝐵2 (𝐶∞ 𝑥 + 𝐷𝑧𝑢 𝑌)𝑇

[ (𝐵2 )𝑇 (𝛾∞ )𝐼 𝐷𝑍𝑇 𝑤 ] min 𝛾𝟐
𝑥,𝑦,𝑄
(𝐶∞ 𝑥 + 𝐷𝑍𝑢 𝑌) 𝐷𝑍 𝑤 −𝛾∞ 𝐼
𝑠. 𝑡.
<0
(𝐴𝑥 + 𝐵1 𝑌) + (𝐴𝑥 + 𝐵1 𝑌)𝑇 + 𝜆𝑥 𝐵2
𝑥>0 [ ]<0
𝐵2𝑇 −𝐼
The result of the application of the control 𝑋 (𝐶2 𝑥 + 𝐷2𝑢 𝑌)𝑇
type 𝐻∞ is too fast and aggressive, since the [ ]>0
(𝐶1 𝑥 + 𝐷1𝑢 𝑌) 𝑄
system suddenly reaches the equilibrium
𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒(𝑄) < 𝛾𝟐
position, as shown in figure 1.1 below:
𝑋 > 0, 𝑄 > 0, 𝛾𝟐 > 0

The result of the application of the optimal

control type 𝐻2 is too fast and aggressive in
the same way that the 𝐻∞ , since the system
suddenly reaches the equilibrium position,
as shown in figure 1.2 below:

Fig 1.2. System response with 𝐻2 controller feedback
Simulation cruise control
After having formulated the problems
𝐻∞ and 𝐻2 it is necessary to introduce the
block diagram on simulink to be able to
evaluate the different performances
generated by the gains obtained. It is so
building a Simulink file that implement the
following scheme:
Fig 1.3. Cruise control scheme
The optimal controllers 𝐻2 and 𝐻∞ are very
aggressive to get as fast as possible to the
equilibrium generating an almost
immediate stability, generating oscillations
of large amplitude in microseconds to
stabilize a system, which sometimes is not
beneficial for all system. It is possible to
notice how the 𝐻∞ control let to obtain a
better performance on the speed. In fact,
the 𝐻∞ control reaches before the desired
value.
Adaptive cruise control
If we want to determine in real time, using a
PID, the input necessary for the
specification. The desired acceleration value
will be provided in this case by:
𝑡
𝑥̈ 𝑑𝑒𝑠 = −𝐾𝑝 (𝑉𝑥 − 𝑉𝑟𝑒𝑓 ) − 𝐾𝑖 ∫(𝑉𝑥 − 𝑉𝑟𝑒𝑓 )𝑑𝑡
0
Defining the reference position, that is the
ideal value of the vehicle:
𝑡
𝑥𝑑𝑒𝑠 = ∫ 𝑉𝑟𝑒𝑓 𝑑𝜏
0
It is obtained as desired acceleration:
𝑥̈ 𝑑𝑒𝑠 = −𝐾𝑝 (𝑥̇ − 𝑥̇ 𝑑𝑒𝑠 ) − 𝐾𝑖 (𝑥 − 𝑥𝑑𝑒𝑠 )
Which is equivalent to control the space
between the two vehicles.
In the case of adaptive cruise control
however there is not a simple adjustment of
the acceleration parameter to the desired
value, but the vehicle must also consider the
various obstacles in the environment to
avoid collisions by adjusting the speed
accordingly. The vehicle that we want to
control, the Ego car is equipped with
sensors, such as radar, which allows us to
measure the distance and speed of the
vehicle in front, the Lead car.
Adaptive cruise control works in two modes:
1. Speed control: the vehicle goes
according to the set value of speed.
2. Spacing control: the vehicle keeps a
safe distance by the lead car.
That means:
Fig 1.4. Adaptive Cruise control
If the relative distance is greater than the
safe distance then the speed will be
controlled, otherwise the aim will be to
control the position of the vehicles in such
a way that the safe distance is sufficient.
The desired value of acceleration is:
𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑠 (𝑡)
𝐾𝑖 𝑣𝑟𝑒𝑙 − 𝐾𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 (𝑑𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 − 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑙 ), 𝑖𝑓 (𝑑𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 − 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑙 ) > 0
={
min (𝐾𝑝 (𝑉𝑟𝑒𝑓 − 𝑉𝑒𝑔𝑜 ), 𝐾𝑖 𝑉𝑟𝑒𝑙 − 𝐾𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 (𝑑𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 − 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑙 )) ,
Where the 𝑑𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 is defined as:
𝑑𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒 = 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑎𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 + 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑝 ∗ 𝑉𝑒𝑔𝑜
Driving scenario designer
The purpose of this part of the project is to
simulate the behavior of an Ego car and that
of a Lead car. We want to set a speed of the
Ego car higher than that of the Lead car. In
this way we want to show how the machine
we are controlling reaches the set speed
until the safety distance, which will be
revealed with the aid of a radar, allows it. In
the second part of the simulation, however,
the Lead car will swerve and consequently,
having no more obstacles, our ego car will
return to its set speed.
To simulate the behavior of vehicles was
used the driving scenario designer of matlab
that allows to build road, vehicle and at the
same time to use sensor. The already
described scenario is so implemented:
Fig 1.5. Driving scenario designer
It is now possible to export the actors in the
simulation and the sensor used in Simulink,
while the speed profile is defined using the
waypoints with a speed profile inside the
toolbox, it is needed to give as input to Ego
Car the values obtained with the strategy of
the adaptive cruise control already defined.
Obtaining the following scheme:
𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒
Fig 1.6. Scenario in Simulink
Simulink implementation
in the script is contained all the necessary
information.
The BusActorsActors.mat variable contains
all the attributes that are needed to
interact with the driving scenario, i.e.:
• ActorID
• Position
• Velocity
• Roll
• Pitch
• Yaw
• Angular Velocity
Now it is necessary to create a sequence of
blocks on Simulink, which given the created
scenario, allows to use the information
obtained from the sensor to calculate the
speed and the relative position to be able to
implement an acceleration control. Once
this is done, the values obtained will be
given as input to the same scenario to be
able to simulate the behavior of an adaptive
cruise control.
Fig 1.7. Find lead car.
using the measurements provided by the
radar, in fact, the two variables of interest,
rel_dis and rel_vel, are generated to pass in
the control scheme for the determination of
the desired acceleration:

Fig 1.8. Ego car.
There are two sub-systems. The first one
receives as input the ego_vel, rel_dis and
rel_vel to return the desired acceleration.
After having obtained the desired
acceleration, it is entered together with the
initial position and the initial speed of the
Ego car in the second subsystem thus
described, to be able to return the current
values.
Fig 1.8. subsystem ego car.
Simulation adaptive cruise control
The speed profile of our ego car will thus be
defined:
Fig 1.9. speed profile of ego car.
In the graph, initially the Ego car will reach
the predefined speed value since the safety
distance will be greater than the relative
one. When it has almost reached the Lead
car, to which a lower maximum speed is
assigned, our control becomes a spacing
control to prevent the collision. In the last
phase of the simulation, as already
described, the lead vehicle will turn thus
involving a new switch from spacing control
to speed control, in fact, not having a vehicle
in front of it, the ego car can return to its set
speed value until the end of the simulation.
Conclusions
A control technique for adaptive cruise
control has also been implemented. In this
case, unlike before, the goal is not simply to
maintain a certain speed profile, but also to
avoid a collision while maintaining a certain
safety distance. This means that if the safety
distance is greater than the relative one
between the vehicles there will be a switch
from speed control to spacing control. To
use a control based on this approach it was
necessary to use the driving scenario
toolbox which allows the simulation of the
sensors thus allowing the calculation of the
relative position and relative speed
between the vehicles. finally using the
information acquired from the sensors and
the model analyzed to describe the
dynamics of the vehicle, it was possible to
simulate a driving scenario that uses this
technique.