Wave Equation of Suppressed Traffic Flow Instabilities
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document.pdf
Description
Accepted version
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257.69 KB
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afb888d77fe18ad2cc8be07ac8acbc75
Author(s)
Horn, Berthold K. P.
Wang, Liang
Date Issued
September 2018
Journal
IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Citation
Horn, Berthold K.P. and Liang Wang. "Wave Equation of Suppressed Traffic Flow Instabilities." IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 19, 9 (September 2018): 2955 - 2964 © IEEE
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Traffic congestion wastes fuel and commuters' time, and adds to CO₂ emissions. Stop-and-go traffic instabilities can be suppresses using bilateral control - which differs from 'car following' and adaptive cruise control in that, counter-intuitively, it uses information about the following vehicle (as well as about the leading vehicle). Stability can be proven mathematically, and can be demonstrated in simulation. A physical analog of a sequence of vehicles using bilateral control is a chain of masses connected by springs and dampers - a system which is inherently stable, since it lacks an external energy source. Here, in order to further understand bilateral control and its capacity to suppress instabilities, we move from a microscopic view (interaction of individual vehicles) to a macroscopic view (densities and flow rates). This leads us to the damped wave equation governing traffic under bilateral control. That equation allows us to determine the speed of propagation of disturbances, as well as their rate of decay. The equation is also useful in fine tuning parameters of bilateral control systems.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1109/tits.2017.2767595
