Application of Reactive Multiagent System to Linear Vehicle Platoon

Vehicular platoon are a promising approach to new transportation systems, with innovative capabilities, such as vehicle sharing and adaptability to demand. This paper presents a multiagent solution to the platoon control problem with a linear configuration. In our case, a platoon is a vehicle train composed of a head vehicle and a variable number of followers. The head vehicle is human-driven or autonomous, whereas each follower vehicle controls its movement by interacting only with the preceding one. To this end, the platoon control system was designed as a reactive multiagent system where each follower vehicle is an agent. Each agent´s behavior is specified by a physics inspired model, which allows to compute vehicle´s speed and direction from a single perception: the distance to the preeding vehicle. Platoon stability emerges as a global result of individual interactions. Furthermore, adaptability to different kinds of vehicles is obtained by adjusting the model´s physical parameters. Another important aspect is related to platoon´s evolution, mainly by vehicle merging and splitting. To assert the transition from abstract to concrete, both simulations and experimentations have been implemented.