Output feedback control of two-lane traffic congestion

This paper develops output feedback boundary control to mitigate traffic congestion of an unidirectional two-lane freeway segment. The macroscopic traffic dynamics are described by the Aw–Rascle–Zhang (ARZ) model respectively for both the fast and slow lanes. The traffic density and velocity of each of the two lanes are governed by coupled 2 × 2 nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs). Lane-changing interactions between the two lanes lead to exchanging source terms between the two pairs second-order PDEs. Therefore, we are dealing with 4 × 4 nonlinear coupled hyperbolic PDEs. Based on driver's preference for the slow and fast lanes, a reference system of lane-specific uniform steady states in congested traffic is chosen. To stabilize traffic densities and velocities of both lanes to the steady states, two distinct variable speed limits (VSLs) are applied at outlet boundary, controlling the traffic velocity of each lane. Using backstepping transformation, we map the coupled heterodirectional hyperbolic PDE system into a cascade target system, in which the traffic oscillations are damped out through actuation of the velocities at the downstream boundary. Two full-state feedback boundary control laws are developed. We also design a collocated boundary observer for state estimation with sensing of the densities at the outlet. Output feedback boundary controllers are obtained by combining the collocated observer and full-state feedback controllers. The finite time convergence to equilibrium is achieved and a performance improvement in fuel consumption, drivers’ comfort and total travel time is demonstrated with the proposed output feedback controllers for some parameter choice, compared with the open-loop system. The proposed output feedback design is also validated for different congested traffic scenarios and compared with one-lane backstepping and PI control designs.