On ramp metering: Towards a better understanding of ALINEA via model-free control

Hassane Abouaïssa (1) , Michel Fliess (2, 3) , Cédric Join (4, 5, 2)

1 LGI2A - Laboratoire de Génie Informatique et d'Automatique de l'Artois
2 AL.I.E.N. - ALgèbre pour Identification & Estimation Numériques
3 LIX - Laboratoire d'informatique de l'École polytechnique [Palaiseau]
4 CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy
5 NON-A - Non-Asymptotic estimation for online systems

ALINEA, which was introduced almost thirty years ago, remains certainly the most well known feedback loop for ramp metering control. A theoretical proof of its efficiency at least when the traffic conditions are rather mild is given here, perhaps for the first time. It relies on tools stemming from the new model-free control and the corresponding "intelligent" proportional controllers. Several computer experiments confirm our theoretical investigations.

Keywords: model-free control; intelligent proportional controllers; METANET; PIDs; proportional-integral controllers; ramp metering; ALINEA; integral controllers; lowpass filters

Domains: Infrastructures de transport; Systems and Control [cs.SY]; Automatic Control Engineering; Artificial Intelligence [cs.AI]; Modeling and Simulation; Automatic; Optimization and Control [math.OC]

Hassane Abouaïssa, Michel Fliess, Cédric Join. On ramp metering: Towards a better understanding of ALINEA via model-free control. International Journal of Control, 2017, 90 (5), pp.1018-1026. ⟨10.1080/00207179.2016.1193223⟩. ⟨hal-01326514⟩