A study on platoon formations and reliable communication in vehicle platoons

Vehicle platooning is a promising concept in dealing with traffic jams. Several simulations and field trials have shown how platooning can improve lane capacity and lower trip times. Despite extensive research in the area of vehicle platooning, the first vehicles were only recently equipped with adaptive cruise control, a basic platooning system without cooperation between vehicles. An important topic of research concerning platooning has been longitudinal control and achieving string stability. For advanced platoon concepts, other topics like lateral and maneuver control are important as well. In this research we investigate such topic of platooning: the process of forming platoons. In this thesis we develop a new strategy for the formation of platoons. This so-called transient formation strategy is evaluated and compared against already existing strategies in a traffic simulator. The results show that our formation strategy is capable of increasing the average platoon length and hence the lane capacity and lower average trip times. In order to support the transient formation strategy, a general multicast protocol has been developed to improve the reliable communication between vehicles in a platoon. This protocol is evaluated in a network simulator and the results indicate significant improvements of the success rate and delay for high traffic densities and large vehicle platoons.