Fuel-Optimal Centralized Coordination of Truck Platooning Based on Shortest Paths

TL;DR

This paper presents a centralized optimization approach for coordinating truck platooning to minimize fuel consumption, integrating routing, speed profiles, and platoon formation decisions, with an approximate algorithm demonstrated on realistic scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimization framework combining routing and platooning decisions for fuel efficiency, along with an approximate solution algorithm.

Findings

The algorithm effectively finds near-optimal platoon configurations.

Simulation on realistic scenarios shows significant fuel savings.

The approach balances routing and platoon formation for optimal results.

Abstract

Platooning is a way to significantly reduce fuel consumption of trucks. Vehicles that drive at close inter-vehicle distance assisted by automatic controllers experience substantially lower air-drag. In this paper, we deal with the problem of coordinating the formation and the breakup of platoons in a fuel-optimal way. We formulate an optimization problem which accounts for routing, speed-dependent fuel consumption, and platooning decisions. An algorithm to obtain an approximate solution to the problem is presented. It first determines the shortest path for each truck. Then, possible platoon configurations are identified. For a certain platoon configuration the optimal speed profile is the solution to a convex program. The algorithm is illustrated by a realistic example.