Life cycle management for cooperative groups of cognitive automobiles in a distributed environment

Vehicle traffic in cities and on motorways is increasing, resulting in traffic jams and trip durations which can hardly be calculated. A reduction of dangerous situations and a higher level of traffic flow can be achieved only partially if single vehicles are considered. Controlling a cluster of cognitive vehicles has more potential for improvement if they are acting in a similar way, e.g. driving at the same time on a motorway in the same direction or approaching a junction. This cluster is called a cooperative group, and acts with sensors to perceive the environment, actuators to influence the maneuver of the vehicles and car-to- car-communication to exchange relevant information between the vehicles. In this paper we will describe a distributed algorithm for the life cycle management of these cooperative groups and introduce a common relevant picture as basis for situation recognition and decision making in a complex traffic scenario. Another focus of this contribution is the microscopic simulation framework developed within the project. It incorporates an agent based component realizing the life cycle management of cooperative groups.