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Platooning Maneuvers in Vehicular Networks: A Distributed and Consensus-Based Approach

Cooperative driving is an essential component of future intelligent road systems. It promises greater safety, reducing accidents due to drivers distraction, improved infrastructure utilization, and fuel consumption reduction with platooning applications. Proper platoon management requires inter-vehicular communication (IVC), longitudinal control and lateral control for stability and safety, and proper application protocols and algorithms to manage platoons and perform coordinated maneuvers. This paper shows, how a longitudinal controller based on distributed consensus can, at the same time, guarantee stability and performance in regime platoon operations, and be at the hearth of maneuvering protocols and algorithms, as it remains stable in face of changes of platoon topology and control gains. The adoption of a single control algorithm for two fundamental tasks greatly simplify the overall design of the system and improves stability and safety as it is not required to switch between different controllers during platoon operation. The theoretical properties are proven in the first part of the paper. The second part of the paper is devoted to its implementation in a state-of-the-art mobility and IVC simulator, which is used for an extensive experimental campaign showing the dynamic properties of the system and its performance in a set of typical platoon maneuvers as join, leave, and inclusion of a vehicle in the middle of the platoon. All simulations include realistic details of the vehicle dynamics (mass, dimensions, power train dynamics) as well as extremely detailed modeling of the communication network, from IEEE 802.11p protocol details, to collisions, packet errors, path loss and fading on the channel, and source-destination-based delays.