Stability of a Vision Based Platooning System

Abstract: The current development of autonomous vehiclesallow for several new applications to form and evolve. One ofthese are platooning, where several vehicles drive closely togetherwith automatic car following. The method of getting informationabout the other vehicles in a platoon can vary. One of thesemethods is using visual information from a camera. Having acamera on-board an autonomous vehicle has further potential, forexample for recognition of objects in the vehicle’s surroundings.This bachelor thesis uses small RC vehicles to test an example ofa vision based platooning system. The system is then evaluatedusing a step response, from which the stability of the systemis analyzed. Additionally, a previously developed communicationbased platooning system was tested in the same way and it’sstability compared. The main conclusion of this thesis is that it isfeasible to use a camera, ArUco marker and an Optimal VelocityRelative Velocity model to achieve a vision based platoon on asmall set of RC vehicles.