Platoon Formation Based on DSRC Basic Safety Messages

Abstract

Two or more vehicles heading to the same desti-nation or different destinations with a partial match can travel together to form a platoon. This can be achieved through both vehicle connectivity and autonomy also known as Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV). In this paper, we propose a comprehensive platooning algorithm consisting of a platoon joiner and maintainer that can form a platoon using Basic Safety Messages (BSMs) to achieve cooperative driving. Platoon-ready, pre-negotiation, negotiation resolver, and platoon member (PM) algorithms presented in our prior work are used here to identify and negotiate for a platoon. After the platoon leader (PL) and PM are determined, PM executes the platoon joiner algorithm to calculate the relative position of PL using the relative angle approach based on our previous work. We use this to guide PM into PL's lane and then the maintainer algorithm maintains the platoon. This way a vehicle platoon can be completed by using only BSMs without the use of any special sensors thereby allowing vehicles to form a platoon even during adverse weather conditions. The proposed platooning algorithm can handle six different scenarios during the platoon formation following the negotiation. We validate these scenarios using the CARLA simulator. CARLA does not support connectivity and we extend it to support connectivity and platooning.