Interaction Protocols for Cooperative Merging and Lane Reduction Scenarios

This paper presents the interaction protocols developed for execution of two common scenarios in daily traffic using cooperative automated vehicles. The first proposed scenario addresses merging of a (semi-)automated car on a highway within a platoon of (semi-)automated vehicles. The second scenario is an extension of the first scenario with a focus on a lane reduction where a platoon of automated vehicles merges into a second one on a different lane. The proposed interaction protocols are characterized by a sequence of maneuvers to execute the scenarios together with the corresponding communication message sets. Moreover, the vehicle control system should be equipped to implement these protocols. Therefore, the design strategy should address the interaction protocol as well as the control system design. The most important feature of the proposed design strategy is to decompose the scenarios into a sequence of basic maneuvers. This method provides a generic solution which can be implemented to other scenarios, too. Also, the thought behind the design approach is to follow the pattern that human drivers interact in similar daily traffic occasions as well as to ensure a distributed decision making mechanism where no fixed supervisor is required. In both scenarios, the platoon controllers are active to achieve the common control objective of platooning. However, for realization of the proposed scenarios, additional controllers are needed to perform the scenario-specific tasks.