Fuel-optimal centralized coordination of truck platooning based on shortest paths

Platooning is a way to significantly reduce fuel consumption of trucks. Vehicles that drive at close inter-vehicle distance assisted by automatic controllers experience substantially lower air-drag. In this paper, we deal with the problem of coordinating the formation and the breakup of platoons in a fuel-optimal way. We formulate an optimization problem which accounts for routing, speed-dependent fuel consumption, and platooning decisions. An algorithm to obtain an approximate solution to the problem is presented. It first determines the shortest path for each truck. Then, possible platoon configurations are identified. For a certain platoon configuration the optimal speed profile is the solution to a convex program. The algorithm is illustrated by a realistic example.