Designing and Implementing a Model Vehicle Platoon with Longitudinal Control

Decreasing fuel consumption and increasing road capacity are both desired in regards to heavy duty vehicles. One proposed way of doing this is by having vehicles travelling at close distances to reduce the air drag, and thereby reducing their fuel consumption. This thesis address the platooning problem on model-scale vehicles as they are a desirable demonstration platform since they can be driven indoors. This thesis considers the implementation and evaluation of the longitudinal control of a model-scale vehicle platoon where Model Predictive Control is utilised. The concept of platooning on real full-size vehicles is briefly discussed and some of its benefits are described. The thesis then discusses and evaluates what sensors are necessary to equip the model vehicles with and how to implement them, in addition to a discussion and evaluation of inter-vehicular communication in an indoor environment is provided. Then, based on the available sensors, a heuristic feedback controller and a model-based controller is designed as distance controllers, as well as a feedback controller used for speed control, and then connected in a cascading structure. The two controllers are then evaluated in simulations based on different scenarios and finally results from a working implementation on the model-scale vehicles are presented. The end results from this thesis are a demonstration platform of two model-scale electrical vehicles as well as two different distance control algorithms both based on using the cruise control developed in the vehicles

Argumentation among self-driving vehicles

In this day and age where the number of vehicles that are being used on highways and roads has been increasing considerably, there is a need for a global driving technique, or a driving phenomenon, where the vehicles can communicate with each other and maintain efficient driving positions by automating the process without the help of a human driver. With the available technology, self-driving cars are already under the spotlight, but these vehicles only offer limited support to the driver and they require human input in the process of driving. Argumentation techniques can be used to develop an efficient algorithm to resolve the conflicts between Agents i.e vehicles to allow safer travel, reduced emissions and better traffic distribution over road networks. Considering the importance of cooperative driving. platoon transition that has been overlooked in the existing research, our implementation tests the use of an Argumentation technique, on top of the platoons, providing an edge over the existing work related to self-driving vehicles. Utilizing the Argumentation allowed an effective way in resolving the conflicts among platoon leaders allowing a smoother transition of platoon groups. The conducted experiment compared the traffic flow of vehicles between two scenarios namely cooperative driving and non-cooperative driving, deriving the results that showcase the advantages of cooperative driving and also the role of argumentation in conflict resolution among vehicle agents

Cognitive Vehicle Platooning in the Era of Automated Electric Transportation

Vehicle platooning is an important innovation in the automotive industry that aims at improving safety, mileage, efficiency, and the time needed to travel. This research focuses on the various aspects of vehicle platooning, one of the important aspects being analysis of different control strategies that lead to a stable and robust platoon. Safety of passengers being a very important consideration, the control design should be such that the controller remains robust under uncertain environments. As a part of the Department of Energy (DOE) project, this research also tries to show a demonstration of vehicle platooning using robots. In an automated highway scenario, a vehicle platoon can be thought of as a string of vehicles, following one another as a platoon. Being equipped by wireless communication capabilities, these vehicles communicate with one another to maintain their formation as a platoon, hence are cognitive. Autonomous capable vehicles in tightly spaced, computer-controlled platoons will lead to savings in energy due to reduced aerodynamic forces, as well as increased passenger comfort since there will be no sudden accelerations or decelerations. Impacts in the occurrence of collisions, if any, will be very low. The greatest benefit obtained is, however, an increase in highway capacity, along with reduction in traffic congestion, pollution, and energy consumption. Another aspect of this project is the automated electric transportation (AET). This aims at providing energy directly to vehicles from electric highways, thus reducing their energy consumption and CO2 emission. By eliminating the use of overhead wires, infrastructure can be upgraded by electrifying highways and providing energy on demand and in real time to moving vehicles via a wireless energy transfer phenomenon known as wireless inductive coupling. The work done in this research will help to gain an insight into vehicle platooning and the control system related to maintaining the vehicles in this formation

230501

Cooperative Vehicular Platooning (Co-VP) is a paradigmatic example of a Cooperative Cyber-Physical System (Co-CPS), which holds the potential to vastly improve road safety by partially removing humans from the driving task. However, the challenges are substantial, as the domain involves several topics, such as control theory, communications, vehicle dynamics, security, and traffic engineering, that must be coupled to describe, develop and validate these systems of systems accurately. This work presents a comprehensive survey of significant and recent advances in Co-VP relevant fields. We start by overviewing the work on control strategies and underlying communication infrastructures, focusing on their interplay. We also address a fundamental concern by presenting a cyber-security overview regarding these systems. Furthermore, we present and compare the primary initiatives to test and validate those systems, including simulation tools, hardware-in-the-loop setups, and vehicular testbeds. Finally, we highlight a few open challenges in the Co-VP domain. This work aims to provide a fundamental overview of highly relevant works on Co-VP topics, particularly by exposing their inter-dependencies, facilitating a guide that will support further developments in this challenging field.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio