Improving the Performance of High-Density Platooning Using Vehicle Sensor-Based Doppler-Compensation Algorithms

This paper investigates the advantages of using communication supported by information from vehicle sensors to improve the performance of the High-Density Platooning (HDPL) application. HDPL is one of the most promising applications in the field of cooperative driving. The goal of this application is to improve fuel and road efficiency without impairing safety. The level of efficiency improvement depends on the instantaneous channel quality. Strong multipath components, which arise from other vehicles, traffic signs, and surrounding buildings in such a highly dynamic vehicular environment, significantly influence the instantaneous link quality between communicating vehicles in a platoon. An emerging concept of vehicle sensor-aided predictive communications has shown its potential to improve direct-link communication. In this paper, the applicability of this approach is evaluated in terms of inter-vehicle distance error, which reflects the difficulties that the control algorithm has to cope with in the communications conditions. The simulation results show that the proposed sensor-based approach significantly improves the platoon performance even if affected by multiple dynamic scattering reflections at the same time.