Vehicle Platoon Control with Multi-configuration Ability

Vehicle platoon approaches found in literature deal generally with column formations adapted to urban or highway transportation systems. This paper presents an approach in which each platoon vehicle follows a virtual vehicle, in order to cope with issues such as different platoon geometries. Those different types of formations can be encountered in a wide range of field such as the military or agriculture. A platoon formation is composed of a vehicle which assumes the platoon leader role (generally human driven) and other vehicles which play the follower role. A follower vehicle assigns a local leader role to one of the vehicles it perceives. The approach presented here bases on a predefined translation of position, by a follower vehicle, calculated from the perceived position of its local leader vehicle. This translation depends on the desired platoon geometry, expressed in terms of a predefined longitudinal and lateral distance of a follower vehicle relatively to its local leader position. Each vehicle is implemented as an agent which makes decisions depending only on its own perception.