A platoon can be defined as a set of vehicles that move

Abderrafiaa Koukam1, Pablo Gruer1, Roland Chapuis2, Benoît Thuilot2, Christophe Debain3, Roland Lenain3,
Monir Benchoaib4, Jérémy Jost5 and Jean-Sebastien Barreiro5
A platoon can be defined as a set of vehicles that move together while keeping a
predefined geometrical configuration, without any material coupling. The most
widely studied configuration is the column, adapted to urban or highway
transportation. Other kinds of formations can be considered, such as line,
echelon and arbitrary. Each of those configurations can have multiple
applications in urban, agricultural and military fields.
The relevance of platoon systems in those fields is due to several reasons. In
urban public transportation systems, platoons can bring flexibility by adapting
dynamically the size of the trains to users demand. In agriculture applications,
platoons with vehicles placed side by side can significantly reduce the duration of
plowing. In military operations, platoons allow to increase the security of
personnel and supplies, particularly if some platoon vehicles are unmanned.
SafePlatoon project is aimed at studying autonomous vehicle platoons taking into
account urban, military and agricultural applications. It focuses on design and
experimental deployment of a set of extended and robust platoon capabilities. It
takes into account several geometrical configurations of vehicles such as linear,
triangular and front line. It also addresses the dynamic adaptation of the platoon
by integrating the configuration changes, the vehicle insertion and ejection.
Verification and validation of proposed decision and control algorithms represent
one of the key points of SafePlatoon. Verification consists in proving that a set of
safety properties are valid relatively to a given system by applying specific
methods and tools. Validation relies on performing a set of test scenarios
through a simulation model of the platoon system. Scenarios are defined to
evaluate the correctness and the quality of the proposed approaches.
ANR Funding
Works are done with the support of the French ANR (ANR-10-VPTT-011).
Partners
1. Institut de Recherche sur le Transport, l'Énergie et la Société (IRTES),
Laboratoire Systèmes et Transports (IRTES-SET)
2. Institut Blaise Pascal (IP)
3. Institut national de Recherche en Sciences et Technologies pour
l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)
4. Direction Générale de l'Armement Techniques terrestres (DGA)
5. CIVITEC
Coordinator
Abderrafiaa KOUKAM IRTES-SET [email protected]
Starting date and duration
2011-03-01 - 36 months
Cluster label
Véhicule du Futur – VIAMECA
First simulations and experimentations
Figure 1 : Farm platoon simulation (IRSTEA)
Figure 2 : Farm platoon experimentation (IRSTEA)
Figure 3 : Military platoon (DGA)
Figure 4 : Urban platoon simulation (IRTES-SET)
Figure 5 : Urban platoon experimentation (IRTES-SET)
Figure 6 : Urban platoon simulation (IP)
Figure 7 : Urban platoon experimentation (IP)