Vehicle platoon and obstacle avoidance: A reactive agent approach

Reactive multi-agent systems are increasingly applied to problem solving, modelling and simulation. Among the benefits of this approach, there is the capability to solve complex problems, whereas maintaining functional and conceptual simplicity of involved entities. Many examples have shown that approaches based on multi-agent systems are effective in solving complex problems such as life simulation and multi-robot cooperation for instance. Side-by-side vehicle platoon systems, which are studied in this article, can be adopted as a representative example of this class of applications. Based on preceding works, this study presents a local platoon control approach with obstacle avoidance. The proposed vehicle decision-making process is considered as a multi-agent system, the agents of which make collectively the best decision considering the perceived constraints and the preceding vehicle position and speed.