Platooning Control Using Visible Light Communications: A Feasibility Study

International audienceThe major benefits of driving vehicles in controlled close formations such as platoons are that of increasing traffic fluidity and reducing air pollution. While V2V communications is requisite for platooning stability, the existing radio commu- nications technologies (e.g., the IEEE 802.11p) suffer from poor performance in highly dense road scenarios, which are exactly to be created by platooning. This paper studies the applicability of visible light communications (VLC) system for information exchange between the platoon members. A complete VLC model is built enabling precise calculations of Bit-Error-Rate (BER) affected by inter-vehicle distance, background noise, incidence angle and receiver electrical bandwidth. Based on our analytical model, the optical parameters suiting platooning application are defined. Finally, a SIMULINK model is devel- oped to study the performances of a platooning longitudinal and lateral control, where VLC is used for vehicle-to-vehicle information exchange. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of VLC-based platooning control even in the presence of optical noise at significant levels and up to certain degree of road curvature