  Coordination of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in a mixed traffic
environment poses significant challenges due to the presence of human-driven
vehicles (HDVs) with stochastic dynamics and driving behavior. In earlier work,
we addressed the problem of platoon formation of HDVs led by a CAV using a
model-dependent controller. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive
model-agnostic, multi-objective optimal controller which ensures platoon
formation by directly controlling the leading CAV without having explicit
knowledge of the trailing HDV dynamics. We provide a detailed exposition of the
control framework that uses instantaneous motion information from multiple
successive HDVs to enforce safety while achieving the optimization objectives.
To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed control framework, we evaluate its
performance using numerical simulation and provide associated sensitivity and
robustness analysis.
