An Interface Between Continuous And Discrete-event Controllers For Vehicle Automation

Automation of highways and in particular platooning of vehicles raises a number of control issues. A hierarchical structure is used to address these issues. The work presented here is an attempt at constructing a consistent interface between discrete event and continuous time controllers. The design proposed is a finite state machine that communicates with the discrete controllers by issuing commands that get translated to "jerk" input for the vehicle engine. The operation of the proposed design is tested using COSPAN. By virtue of the fact that the interface touches on both the discrete and continuous worlds, the design might provide insight to interesting problems related to the hybrid nature of the system.