California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

In this report, the estimation of longitudinal states in a four-wheel platoon is derived, discussed and illustrated numerically. The general procedure in the process is the use of dynamic equations and data, for finding the estimates and root means squared errors in the estimated of the states for each vehicle. The nonlinear dynamics of the platoon are those in the computer code developed by U.C. Berkeley. Several additional parameters require numerical specification, including data and process noise levels. The control algorithm is applied to the estimates rather than to the actual states in the four-vehicle platoon. A Kalman filter is used to give estimates which is used to give estimates that are both consistent and accurate.