The Influence of Packet Losses and Packet Delays on the Minimum Distance of Vehicles in Platooning

A vehicle platoon is formed by a number of vehicles following each other at close distance at highway speeds. This short distance is made possible by wirelessly exchanging information about, e.g., desired accelerations of platoon participants, and integrating this information into control loops governing the acceleration of each individual vehicle.

To date, much research has been performed that investigates communication aspects such as when to send information or which wireless channel to use, all with the goal of minimizing delays and packet loss. This is because, naturally, lost or delayed information about the state of other platoon participants negatively impacts platooning performance. However, little research has yet been performed that explores the relation between age of information and platooning performance.

Goals of the thesis

This thesis will systematically explore how age of information impacts platooning performance, revealing findings in the sense of “each millisecond that information is delayed requires vehicles to drive one more centimeter apart”. For this, a set of output metrics will be defined to quantify platooning performance as will input metrics that would impact age of information. Then, scenarios will be designed that challenge the performance of platooning approaches. Lastly, simulation studies will be performed that measure output metrics in relation to input metrics before results are reported and conclusions drawn.

Simulations will be performed using the Open Source simulation tool Plexe (see https://plexe.car2x.org/).

Keywords

C++, Platooning, Network Simulation, Cooperative Mobile Systems

Contact

• B. Hensel