Architecture and algorithms for cooperative planning in groups of autonomous vehicles

With the recent advances in the field of autonomous driving, large scale deployment of such vehicles on public roads is both foreseeable and intended by many manufacturers. In order to not only maintain safety, but also driving comfort and comprehensibility at all times it is necessary to develop and implement modularized and standardized interfaces for planning and information exchange. In this paper, a layered architecture for cooperative groups of autonomous vehicles is proposed. An algorithm for aggregation of these groups as well as a simulation environment are presented and described in detail. Finally, first simulation results and an outlook are provided.