A Communication-Latency-Aware Co-Simulation Platform for Safety and Comfort Evaluation of Cloud-Controlled ICVs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a latency-aware co-simulation platform combining CarMaker and Vissim to evaluate safety and comfort of cloud-controlled ICVs under realistic communication delays derived from empirical 5G data.

Contribution

It presents a novel co-simulation platform that integrates real-world latency models and a proactive conflict module for comprehensive safety and comfort testing of cloud-controlled ICVs.

Findings

PCM increases environment criticality and safety risks.

V2C latency significantly impacts ride comfort.

Platform effectively evaluates safety and comfort under various conditions.

Abstract

Testing cloud-controlled intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) requires simulation environments that faithfully emulate both vehicle behavior and realistic communication latencies. This paper proposes a latency-aware co-simulation platform integrating CarMaker and Vissim to evaluate safety and comfort under real-world vehicle-to-cloud (V2C) latency conditions. Two communication latency models, derived from empirical 5G measurements in China and Hungary, are incorporated and statistically modeled using Gamma distributions. A proactive conflict module (PCM) is proposed to dynamically control background vehicles and generate safety-critical scenarios. The platform is validated through experiments involving an exemplary system under test (SUT) across six testing conditions combining two PCM modes (enabled/disabled) and three latency conditions (none, China, Hungary). Safety and comfort are assessed using metrics including collision rate, distance headway, post-encroachment time, and the spectral characteristics of longitudinal acceleration. Results show that the PCM effectively increases driving environment criticality, while V2C latency primarily affects ride comfort. These findings confirm the platform's effectiveness in systematically evaluating cloud-controlled ICVs under diverse testing conditions.