[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-85321-en":3,"doc-seo-85321-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},85321,1099514068365,"Aurelia","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/10000253d8d9f28188e?_k=1776742907772140068",8,"Research & Report","Decentralized Model Predictive Control of Connected and Automated Vehicles with Coupled Safety Constraints","Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) on lane-free highways can significantly improve traffic efficiency, yet their nonlinear dynamics and coupled, nonconvex safety constraints create major control-design difficulties. Centralized MPC guarantees safety but faces scalability and communication bottlenecks. The paper develops decentralized MPC (DMPC) coordination using iterative, non-cooperative Jacobi- and Gauss-Seidel-type algorithms. It introduces a constraint decoupling method that converts nonconvex safety constraints into convex, locally enforceable ones via buffered Voronoi cells, with simulations showing safer, more scalable trajectories and highlighting trade-offs among safety, performance, and computation.","arXiv :2607 . 11403v1 [ ee ss . SY] 13 Jul 2026  \nDecentralized Model Predictive Control of Connected and Automated Vehicles with Coupled Safety Constraints  \nPhilip Schultheis, Kimia Chavoshi*, and John Lygeros  \nAutomatic Control Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information  \nTechnology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland  \nAbstract  \nConnected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) operating on lane-free highways offer substantial gainsin traffic efficiency. However, their inherent nonlinear dynamics and the presence of coupled, nonconvex safety constraints present critical challenges to control design. Centralized Model Predictive Control (MPC) ensures safety, but suffers from scalability and communication limitations. To address these challenges, this paper investigates decentralized MPC (DMPC) for CAV coordination, focusing on iterative, non-cooperative algorithms, including Jacobi-type and Gauss-Seidel-type. A novel decoupling method is developed to transform nonconvex safety constraints into convex, locally enforceable constraints, inspired by buffered Voronoi cells. The simulation results show that the proposed DMPC algorithms achieve safe and efficient vehicle trajectories while substantially improving scalability, highlighting their potential for future lane-free CAV traffic systems. Ultimately, the results indicate that the most suitable decentralized control strategy depends on the desired trade-off between safety, performance, and computational efficiency.  \nKeywords: Connected and Automated Vehicles, Decentralized Control, Lane-Free Traffic.  \n1 Introduction  \nThe rise of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) enables novel traffic paradigms, such as lane-free highways, where vehicles exploit the full capacity of the road to increase throughput and efficiency Sekeran et al. (2022); Papageorgiou et al. (2024); Chavoshi et al. (2025) . In this context, safety is paramount; vehicles must avoid collisions during complex lateral maneuvers. Model Predictive Control (MPC) is widely used here due to its prediction capabilities and constraint handling Rawlings et al. (2020) . While centralized MPC ensures safety, it scales poorly and imposes high communication demands Christofides et al. (2013); Chavoshi et al. (2024) . Decentralized MPC (DMPC) offers a scalable alternative by solving local subproblems in parallel or sequentially Maestre & Negenborn (2014) . However, coupled nonconvex constraints in DMPC can lead to compromised safety, infeasibility, and sub-optimality. To address these, we developed a novel method to decouple safety constraints. The main contributions of this work are:  \n• Developing an algorithm for decoupling nonconvex safety constraints.  \n• Developing a Jacobi-type algorithm to solve the DMPC problem with coupled and decoupled safety constraints.  \n• Developing a Gauss-Seidel-type algorithm to solve the DMPC problem with coupled and decoupled safety constraints.  \n• Analyzing safety, scalability, real-time feasibility, and performance of the proposed methods. Section 2 reviews related work on lane-free CAV control and DMPC. Section 3 presents the problem formulation and the proposed decentralized algorithms, including the constraint decoupling method. Section 4 reports the simulation results. Finally, Section 5 discusses the main findings, and Section 6 concludes the research and outlines future work.  \n2 Related Work  \nLane-free traffic is an emerging paradigm in which CAVs are not restricted to discrete lanes, using methods such as nudging to optimize road capacity and improve traffic efficiency Sekeran et al.  \n(2022); Papageorgiou et al. (2024) . On lane-free highways, a kinematic bicycle model is often used to capture nonlinear lateral–longitudinal movement while remaining computationally tractable for receding-horizon control Chavoshi et al. (2024), Levy & Haddad (2021) . Centralized nonlinear MPC formulations can incorporate such models and enforce collision avoidance constraints directly, b","cbCaisvplTNH4ALF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaisvplTNH4ALF","pdf",1706671,1,11,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n# Related Work","[{\"question\":\"Why is centralized MPC challenging for lane-free CAV traffic?\",\"answer\":\"Centralized MPC can ensure safety but scales poorly and requires high communication in dense traffic scenarios.\"},{\"question\":\"What decentralized MPC strategies does the paper investigate?\",\"answer\":\"The paper studies iterative, non-cooperative decentralized MPC algorithms, including Jacobi-type and Gauss-Seidel-type methods for coordinating vehicles.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper make coupled nonconvex safety constraints tractable?\",\"answer\":\"A novel decoupling method transforms nonconvex safety constraints into convex, locally enforceable constraints, inspired by buffered Voronoi cells.\"}]",1784202473,28,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"decentralized-model-predictive-control-of-connected-and-automated-vehicles-with-coupled-safety-constraints","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/decentralized-model-predictive-control-of-connected-and-automated-vehicles-with-coupled-safety-constraints/85321/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-17","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"Why is centralized MPC challenging for lane-free CAV traffic?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Centralized MPC can ensure safety but scales poorly and requires high communication in dense traffic scenarios.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What decentralized MPC strategies does the paper investigate?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"The paper studies iterative, non-cooperative decentralized MPC algorithms, including Jacobi-type and Gauss-Seidel-type methods for coordinating vehicles.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"How does the paper make coupled nonconvex safety constraints tractable?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"A novel decoupling method transforms nonconvex safety constraints into convex, locally enforceable constraints, inspired by buffered Voronoi cells.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]