Situation-aware communication topologies in heterogeneous platooning scenarios

• Published in: Control engineering practice 2023-04, Vol.133, p.105448, Article 105448
• Main Authors: Miekautsch, Fritz, Seeland, Felix, Horn, Joachim, Fay, Alexander
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Connected and automated vehicles; Networked control; Platooning
• ISSN: 0967-0661; 1873-6939
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2023.105448

Communication-based controllers for platooning are often designed for a homogeneous vehicle composition in a normal driving situation. However, in realistic applications, platoons will consist of different vehicles types or brands and thus be heterogeneous, which increases the requirements for safe operation. In addition, controllers designed for the nominal driving situation are not necessarily able to handle disturbances, such as the cut-in of a foreign vehicle or an emergency braking of the entire platoon. The authors’ previous work has shown that for different driving situations (e.g. emergency braking or cut-in of a foreign vehicle) different communication topologies can be beneficial in order to control the platoon. In this paper, a concept for switching the communication topology depending on the current driving situation in a heterogeneous vehicle platoon is presented. The concept is applied for coordinated emergency braking, for the startup from standstill and for the cut-in of a foreign vehicle. For these situations, it is shown that varying the communication topology of an otherwise unchanged local controller can prevent collisions within the platoon. Furthermore, improvements can be achieved by considering the different vehicle types and their position in the vehicle string. For the example driving situations, it is shown how suitable communication topologies can be identified. •Novel approach for switching the communication topology based on driving situation.•Consideration of individual dynamic capabilities of each platoon member.•Multiple driving situations examined, namely emergency braking, cut-in and startup.•Various heterogeneous platoon compositions are examined in numerical simulation.•Simulation results demonstrate improvements in performance and safety.