Connected Vehicles Coordination: A Coalitional Game-Theory Approach

Abstract

Collective autonomous vehicles are the next step in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to optimize the traffic flow and increase road safety. However, the management of collective dense scenarios formed by rapid moving vehicles is not a simple task. Thus, a coordination scheme for connected vehicles is proposed in this paper. The coordination and formation scheme is designed using a joint paradigm. On the one hand, the platoon formation is based on a coalitional game-theory approach. On the other hand, the intra and inter-platoon coordination is controlled using a cooperative communication scheme managing the safety and stability of the platoon. Here we define a utility function-based coalitional game to optimize the traffic flow and manage the platoons. In addition, using the information gathered by the deployed infrastructures, the coalitional game behavior is updated in order to react accordingly to unexpected network events and vehicle actions. The platoon management is coordinated using communication schemes in order to achieve the optimal distance between vehicles and platoons, increasing the traffic flow and stability. In order to validate our theoretical framework, simulations are performed under realistic conditions to determine the positive impact obtained by the proposed cooperative scheme in comparison with different approaches.