A Fast Algorithm for Planning Optimal Platoon Speeds on Highway

Abstract

To meet policy requirements on increased transport energy efficiency and reduced emissions, smart control and management of vehicles and fleets have become important for the development of eco-friendly intelligent transportation systems (ITS). The emergence of new information and communication technologies and their applications, particularly vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, facilitates the implementation of autonomous vehicle concepts, and meanwhile serves as an effective means for control of vehicle fleet by continuously providing support and guidance to drivers. While convoy driving of trucks by longitudinal automation could save 5 – 15% of fuel consumption due to the reduction of air-drag resistance, this study attempts to investigate the energy saving potential of truck platoons by intelligent speed planning. Assuming that real-time traffic information is available because of communication, an efficient speed control algorithm is proposed based on optimal control theory. The method is faster than the conventional dynamic programming approach and hence applied in the study to analyze energy saving potential of simple platoon operations including acceleration and deceleration. The numerical result shows significant improvement on energy saving due to speed planning during platooning. It can be further applied for more complex platooning operations.