Evaluation of string stability during highway platoon merge

Abstract: Automated vehicles are considered to be the future solution to reduce traffic congestion and to increase road safety. The Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) has been introduced as Advance Driver Assistance System (ADAS) to improve road network utilization. However, complex traffic situations are still resolved by human drivers. Vehicular communication has been introduced to interconnect different nodes in the transport system for example vehicles, infrastructure, and vulnerable road users. Communication enables improved local awareness of the road users and the potential to further improve the performance is increased. In this study, a popular ACC algorithm, the notion of string stability and the concept of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) are discussed. A new CACC algorithm is proposed focusing on maintaining platoon string stability during different traffic situations. The performance of the controller is compared with one of the most accepted ACC algorithms. The proposed controller was implemented in a real world cooperative highway merge scenario. The collected data was presented and appraised under three different evaluation criteria. The controller has shown low downstream error propagation in simulation and in real world experiment it successfully maintained string stability during highway platooning and merging scenarios.