A Platoon Formation Framework in a Mixed Traffic Environment

TL;DR

This paper proposes a control framework for vehicle platoon formation in mixed traffic environments with partial connected and automated vehicle (CAV) penetration, enabling platooning by controlling only CAVs and considering human-driven vehicle interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analytical control policy for CAVs that facilitates platoon formation with human-driven vehicles in mixed traffic networks.

Findings

The control framework successfully achieves platoon formation in simulations.

The analytical solution defines conditions for feasible platooning.

The approach reduces traffic delays and improves efficiency.

Abstract

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) provide the most intriguing opportunity to reduce pollution, energy consumption, and travel delays. In this paper, we address the problem of vehicle platoon formation in a traffic network with partial CAV penetration rates. We investigate the interaction between CAV and human-driven vehicle (HDV) dynamics, and provide a rigorous control framework that enables platoon formation with the HDVs by only controlling the CAVs within the network. We present a complete analytical solution of the CAV control policy and the conditions under which a platoon formation is feasible. We evaluate the solution and demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed framework using numerical simulation.