Technical Paper
Expanding the Use of VSP in the Analysis of Platooning Performance
2024-04-09
2024-01-2057
Platooning is a coordinated driving strategy by which following trucks are placed into the wake of leading vehicles. Doing this leads to two primary benefits. First, the vehicles following are shielded from aerodynamic drag by a “pulling” effect. Secondly, by placing vehicles behind the leading truck, the leading vehicles experience a “pushing” effect. The reduction in aerodynamic drag leads to reduced fuel usage and, as a consequence, reduced greenhouse gas emissions. In order to maximize these effects, the inter-vehicle distance, or headway, needs to be minimized. In current platooning strategy iterations, Coordinated Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) is used to maintain close following distances. Many of these strategies utilize the fuel rate signal as a parameter in the controllers cost function. By using fuel rate, current control strategies have limited applicability to non-conventional powertrains.