Platooning of autonomous vehicles with intervehicle communications in SUMO traffic simulator

An approach to increase road capacity consists in making vehicles move much closer to each other, i.e. using platoons, and to avoid the constant stop-and-go in urban traffic. This paper addresses the studies of new models to allow the research of cooperative and autonomous communication-enabled vehicles, with platooning capabilities, and the addition of new features in SUMO (Simulation for Urban MObility) to allow the simulation of those models. Simulations results of vehicle platoons using constant spacing instead of the more common constant time headway, with intervehicle communications, are reported in the paper. The platoon leaders are controlled by an external application and the simulation platform works at the subsecond level.