A Security Protocol for Vehicle Platoon Verification Using Optical Camera Communications

In autonomous vehicle platooning, members of the platoon not only use their own sensor data for making driving decisions. They also rely on data shared by other members of the platoon. This article proposes a security protocol to verify the established communication link between two vehicles driving in succession. Optical camera communications (OCC) via modulated taillights of the leading vehicle and a front-facing camera of the follower is utilized to transmit a verification key. In the footage of the receiving camera, both the transmitted verification key and the transmitting vehicle are visible and can be associated. If the car in front is able to transmit a valid verification key, the platoon can be built. In this article, a comprehensive evaluation of vehicular OCC is presented. The system is tested in different configurations on public roads with various environmental conditions. This platoon verification mechanism takes less than 10 seconds, even in challenging conditions, e.g., in rain, darkness, or low sun. The experiments demonstrate that modern vehicles are equipped with all hardware components required to implement this OCC system by using the built-in front camera of a Tesla Model 3 as receiver without any modifications.