Communication Aspects of a Modified Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control Algorithm

This paper investigates the ability of modified Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control to support high-density car platooning. We first use a simplistic communication model to study the impact of actuation lag, message periodicity, and communication delay on the minimum feasible inter-car spacing. We then use a detailed IEEE 802.11p simulation model to evaluate the platooning performance in realistic highway scenarios. Different highway traffic intensities are simulated to observe the impact of increasing contention on the wireless channel with two different transceiver configurations: a single-transceiver operating on the common safety channel and a dual-transceiver operating simultaneously on the common safety channel and a dedicated service channel.