L-Platooning: A Protocol for Managing a Long Platoon with DSRC
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Vehicle platooning is a new driving technology that enables vehicles to form a road train autonomously. It has great potential to improve traffic congestion, environmental pollution, and driver safety. As such, it received significant attention from governments, industry, and academics. It is especially beneficial for logistics companies that can take advantage of a long platoon consisting of large trailer trucks. Existing platooning solutions, however, may not work properly for a long platoon due to the limited range of dedicated short range communication (DSRC). In this paper, we present L-Platooning, the first platooning protocol that enables seamless, reliable, and rapid formation of a long platoon. A novel concept called Virtual Leader is developed to effectively manage a long platoon; a distributed algorithm based on a novel model called the Virtual Leader Quality Index (VLQI) is designed to effectively extend the coverage of the platoon leader and to support the vehicle join and leave maneuvers for a long platoon. Extensive simulation is performed using combination of Veins (Plexe) and SUMO. The results demonstrate that L-Platooning enables vehicles to form a long platoon rapidly and reliably, maintain the desired inter-vehicle distances precisely, and handles elegantly the vehicle join and leave maneuvers.
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