Platoon of SAE Level-2 Automated Vehicles on Public Roads: Setup, Traffic Interactions, and Stability

Platoon of SAE Level-2 Automated Vehicles on Public Roads: Setup, Traffic Interactions, and Stability

Knoop, V.L. (TU Delft Transport and Planning)
Wang, M. (TU Delft Transport and Planning)
Wilmink, Isabel (TNO)
Hoedemaeker, D. Marika (TNO)
Maaskant, Mark (Prodrive Advanced Driver Training)
Van der Meer, Evert-Jeen (Aon Risk Solutions, Trade and Manufacturing)

2019

An increasing amount of vehicles are equipped with driver assistance systems; many of the vehicles currently on the market can be optionally equipped with adaptive cruise control and lane centering systems. Using both systems at the same time brings the vehicle to SAE level-2 automation . This means a driver does not need to perform longitudinal and lateral operational driving, although the driver should be ready to intervene at any time. While this can provide comfort, the interaction between vehicles operated by these systems might cause some undesired effects. This becomes particularly relevant with increasing market penetration rates. This paper describes an experiment with seven SAE level-2 vehicles driven as a platoon on public roads for a trip of almost 500 km. The paper discusses how the experiment was organized and the equipment of the vehicles. It also discusses the interaction of the platoon in traffic, as well as, in basic terms, the interaction between the automated vehicles. The experiences can be useful for other studies setting up field tests. The conclusion from this platoon test is: intentionally creating platoons on public roads is difficult in busy traffic conditions. Moreover, interactions between the vehicles in the platoon show that the current SAE level-2 systems are not suitable for driving as platoons of more than typically three to four vehicles, because of instabilities in the car-following behavior.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f393c27a-b0a1-4058-a0c8-4b7b4c94f988

https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198119845885

2019-11-07

0361-1981

Transportation Research Record, 2673 (9), 311-322

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2019 V.L. Knoop, M. Wang, Isabel Wilmink, D. Marika Hoedemaeker, Mark Maaskant, Evert-Jeen Van der Meer