A robust signal-flow architecture for cooperative vehicle density control

Traffic flow instabilities have many potential negative consequences, including increased danger of collisions, higher fuel consumption, faster of abrasion of roadways, and reduction of overall traffic throughput. Instabilities occur even if modern forward-looking adaptive cruise control systems are used. In this paper, we present an architecture for controlling vehicle density that uses coordination between adjacent vehicles to attain desired safe following distances, without generating these types of instabilities in the process. The presented architecture has several additional desirable properties, including being robust to sensor failures and measurement inconsistencies, as well as allowing for inhomogeneous vehicle dynamics.