Kreienkamp, Fishbein, Publish at American Control Conference

2019 CAT Vehicle REU Site alumni Daniel Fishbein and Christopher Kreienkamp recently published their late-breaking results in the 2020 American Control Conference, a conference of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). Their paper, titled "Safety and Stability Analysis of the FollowerStopper Traffic Wave Dampening Controller", was a late-breaking poster, and emerged from their project, with mentor by Rahul Bhadani.

The FollowerStopper controller was used in the Arizona Ring Experiment to demonstrate the ability of single vehicles in traffic flow to dampen emergent traffic waves. This paper examined whether a platoon of vehicles each using the FollowerStopper would be stable and safe with respect to disruption in the velocity of one or more of the vehicles. The approach is analysis and simulation of the controller, including a upper bound of velocity based on sensor horizon.

Due to safety considerations from COVID-19, the entire conference was held virtually, and Christopher presented the results of the paper through a 5-minute video presentation. 

“Although I wish the conference could have been in person so I could have met other researchers in Denver, I find myself very lucky to have worked with my team, and to have been able to participate in the CAT Vehicle REU program,” Kreincamp said. Publication costs, and the original research of the team, were supported by the National Science Foundation.