A Simulation Framework for Multi-Vehicle Communication

Cooperative driving systems are a possible solution to improve traffic efficiency, road safety and even reduce the emission of pollutants, but there are several problems relating to aspects of safety, cost, duration and feasibility that slow down the development and experiments. In this context, simulation tools are essential to help researchers on this development. The goal of this paper is to present our simulator framework for cooperative vehicle systems and also a test case for validation. This framework is an integration among open-source tools which is composed by real-time robotics simulator and network simulator. The test case is a simulation which implements the Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) that uses both vehicle control and communication. The simulation is based on an approach Leader -- Follower with four vehicles, using a Preceding Communication Topology. The proposed Framework allows evaluating the delay time effect on CACC communication systems and also validating the control performance, taken into consideration the distance and velocity of the simulated vehicles.