On Thursday November 27th, 2025, AL Khwarizmi college of engineering held a master defense of the master candidate (Ansam Yahya Khamis) from the department of mechatronics, titled “ An optimized cruise control system for autonomous vehicle” at the higher studies hall, and a degree of pass with merit was awarded to her.
The thesis shed lights on developing adaptive cruise control (ACC) aligned with autonomous vehicles, in which enhancing stability and safety levels, precise distance and speed tracking, unlike traditional control systems struggle with nonlinear vehicles dynamics and external disturbances.
The thesis proposed two control strategies:
1-SMC with Feedback Linearization to ensure robustness and stability under uncertainties.
2-Two-layer ACC using PID controllers tuned by the Slap Swarm Algorithm (SSA) to improve tracking accuracy.
MATLAB simulations show significant improvements in overshoot reduction, disturbance rejection, and steady-state performance compared to classical controllers. Also, the study demonstrated that sliding mode control (SMC) offers the best performance in terms of speed, robustness, and safety, particularly under extreme or uncertain conditions, however, SSA-PID controllers, though optimized, are more suitable for mild driving conditions.
