Towards Heterogeneous Communication Strategies for Urban Platooning at Intersections

Platooning promises to solve worldwide traffic problems by using wireless communication for tight control of convoys of vehicles to reduce their inter-vehicle gaps. To date, however, most research on platooning has focused on freeway scenarios. In this paper, we provide a realistic exploration of platooning in urban environments: We consider traffic lights and buildings, realistic vehicle dynamics, platooning controllers, and network communication. We highlight the challenges that urban platooning faces because of the particularities of the Radio Frequency (RF) channel, specifically near the centers of intersections. We demonstrate that using Visible Light Communication (VLC) as an alternative can alleviate some problems, but causes others. Using extensive simulations, we show how a situation-aware combination of VLC and RF communication can be used as a solution: It reduces the overall amount of lost information by approx. 85 % compared to traditional approaches.