Strategy for heterogeneous vehicular platoons merging in automated highway system

In automated highway systems (AHSs) vehicles are expected to travel in a way that safety and high capacity are guaranteed by interacting with automated vehicles in the vicinity. The goal of this paper is to study the problem of heterogeneous vehicular platoons merging which is one of the crucial vehicle maneuvers in an AHS environment that could affect safety and capacity. For this purpose, a specific protocol based on Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) Controller is designed to make space for the merging platoon, and a Distributed Model Predictive Control (DMPC) controller is proposed to generate trajectories when several automated vehicles merge from the adjacent lane into the main vehicle platoon. Performances of designed controllers are tested in platoon merging scenario when multiple vehicles change lane to join the destination platoon, and the simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approaches while taking the safety and comfort of passengers into account.