Mitigation and Evasion of Negative Effects of Nonhomogeneous Vehicle Dynamics in Platooning Applications

Abstract

Platooning and its application to meet the requirements of modern logistics has become a major field of research and gained interest in the private sector. The current state of the art is foremost concerned with homogeneous configurations. However, the research within the scope of the study "teleoperated driving in convoy applications" at the Helmut-SchmidtUniversity, Hamburg focuses on nonhomogeneous platoons. This paper seeks to motivate further research in this regard and proposes first approaches to solve arising issues. Out of the numerous variants of controllers that have been developed, a handful were selected to establish a baseline of performance in homogeneous configurations. Two testing scenarios for simulation were presented. The different controllers were compared based on their performance in the testing scenarios. Then, the composition shifted to nonhomogeneous platoons. The performance of the different systems was compared and evaluated with respect to each other and the homogeneous baseline. Observed effects are described and possible causes discussed. Various approaches to mitigate and evade negative effects were proposed and evaluated.