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Volume 7
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10.3390/automation7050134
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This is an early access version, the complete PDF, HTML, and XML versions will be available soon.
Article

Robust Fractional-Order Control of Vehicle Platoon Under Actuator and Communication Delay Intervals

by
Majid Ghorbani
1,
Omar Hanif
2,
Patrick Gruber
2,
Aldo Sorniotti
3,
Komeil Nosrati
1,
Aleksei Tepljakov
1,
Eduard Petlenkov
1 and
Umberto Montanaro
2,*
1
Department of Computer Systems, Tallinn University of Technology, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia
2
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, School of Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK
3
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Automation 2026, 7(5), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/automation7050134
Submission received: 1 July 2026 / Revised: 14 August 2026 / Accepted: 21 August 2026 / Published: 26 August 2026
(This article belongs to the Section Control Theory and Methods)
Versions Notes

Abstract

Stabilisation of autonomous vehicle platoons becomes challenging in the presence of uncertain delays in actuator dynamics and vehicle-to-vehicle communication. This paper presents a distributed fractional-order proportional derivative (FOPD) control protocol for a platoon operating under various communication topologies, with bounded uncertainties in actuator lag and communication delay, respectively. It builds on an auxiliary function-based robust stability approach that provides a geometric interpretation of the delay-uncertain characteristic family and eliminates the need for exhaustive parameter gridding. This is followed by a numerical design procedure that evaluates the derived robust stability conditions on explicitly stated frequency grids. Numerical analysis of heterogeneous platoons indicates that the FOPD strategy produces bounded stable responses for the sampled uncertainty realisations and exhibits improved tracking behaviour compared with the integer-order PD baseline using the same numerical values of KP and KD. It also provides better damping of oscillations and reduced tracking errors under uncertain operating conditions.
Keywords: communication delays; distributed control; fractional-order control; interval uncertainty; robust stability; vehicle platooning communication delays; distributed control; fractional-order control; interval uncertainty; robust stability; vehicle platooning

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MDPI and ACS Style

Ghorbani, M.; Hanif, O.; Gruber, P.; Sorniotti, A.; Nosrati, K.; Tepljakov, A.; Petlenkov, E.; Montanaro, U. Robust Fractional-Order Control of Vehicle Platoon Under Actuator and Communication Delay Intervals. Automation 2026, 7, 134. https://doi.org/10.3390/automation7050134

AMA Style

Ghorbani M, Hanif O, Gruber P, Sorniotti A, Nosrati K, Tepljakov A, Petlenkov E, Montanaro U. Robust Fractional-Order Control of Vehicle Platoon Under Actuator and Communication Delay Intervals. Automation. 2026; 7(5):134. https://doi.org/10.3390/automation7050134

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ghorbani, Majid, Omar Hanif, Patrick Gruber, Aldo Sorniotti, Komeil Nosrati, Aleksei Tepljakov, Eduard Petlenkov, and Umberto Montanaro. 2026. "Robust Fractional-Order Control of Vehicle Platoon Under Actuator and Communication Delay Intervals" Automation 7, no. 5: 134. https://doi.org/10.3390/automation7050134

APA Style

Ghorbani, M., Hanif, O., Gruber, P., Sorniotti, A., Nosrati, K., Tepljakov, A., Petlenkov, E., & Montanaro, U. (2026). Robust Fractional-Order Control of Vehicle Platoon Under Actuator and Communication Delay Intervals. Automation, 7(5), 134. https://doi.org/10.3390/automation7050134

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