Soft-link control for electric light vehicle

This study developed a soft-link control system for electric light vehicles. The meaning of the soft-link control is that a vehicle automatically follows the preceding vehicle with a very short inter-vehicle distance as if the both vehicles were mechanically connected. The soft-link control is expected to stretch the limitation of the light vehicles, because small capacity of the light vehicle is timely enlarged, resulting in giving a potential to apply them to more various purposes. In this study, the experimental vehicles are developed based on small electric vehicles and control algorithms are designed. Stability and reliability of control and accurate tracking are realized by using information of the preceding vehicle sent via wireless LAN communication. The experimental results show that the controlled vehicle can follow the preceding vehicle with an inter-vehicle distance of less than 1[m].