Abstract-Freight transportation is of outmost importance for our society and is continuously increasing. At the same time, transporting goods on roads accounts for about 26% of all energy consumption and 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. Despite the influence the transportation system has on our energy consumption and the environment, road transportation is mainly done by individual long-haulage trucks with no real-time coordination or global optimization. In this paper, we review how modern information and communication technology supports a cyber-physical transportation system architecture with an integrated logistic system coordinating fleets of trucks traveling together in vehicle platoons. From the reduced air drag, platooning trucks traveling close together can save about 10% of their fuel consumption. Utilizing road grade information and vehicle-to-vehicle communication, a safe and fuel-optimized cooperative look-ahead control strategy is implemented on top of the existing cruise controller. By optimizing the interaction between vehicles and platoons of vehicles, it is shown that significant improvements can be achieved. An integrated transport planning and vehicle routing in the fleet management system allows both small and large fleet owners to benefit from the collaboration. A realistic case study with 200 heavy-duty vehicles performing transportation tasks in Sweden is described. Simulations show overall fuel savings at more than 5% thanks to coordinated platoon planning. It is also illustrated how well the proposed cooperative look-ahead controller for heavy-duty vehicle platoons manages to optimize the velocity profiles of the vehicles over a hilly segment of the considered road network.
Vehicle platooning has in recent years become an important research field for the vehicle industry. By establishing a platoon of heavy duty vehicles, the fuel consumption can be reduced for the follower vehicles due to the slipstream effect. However, as vehicles are scattered on the road driving by themselves, coordination amongst the vehicles is required. In this paper we study the problem of when it is beneficial for a heavy duty vehicle to drive faster in order to catch up and join a platoon. We derive a formula, based on flat road and with no vehicle accelerations, to calculate if it is more fuel-efficient for a vehicle to drive faster and platoon or keep driving alone. Depending on the distance between the vehicles and the distance to the destination, the fuel savings vary. For a trip of 350 km, with a distance of 10 km to the vehicle ahead, the fuel saving could be up to 7 % if the follower vehicle decides to increase the speed from 80 km/h to 90 km/h in order to catch up and form a platoon, assuming an air drag reduction of 32 % when platooning. Sensitivity analysis has shown that the speeds need to be relatively accurate in order to not give any false positive catch up decisions.
Abstract-Heavy-duty vehicles traveling in platoons consume fuel at a reduced rate. In this paper, we attempt to maximize this benefit by introducing local controllers throughout a road network to facilitate platoon formations with minimal information. By knowing a vehicle's position, speed, and destination, the local controller can quickly decide how its speed should be possibly adjusted to platoon with others in the near future. We solve this optimal control and routing problem exactly for small numbers of vehicles, and present a fast heuristic algorithm for realtime use. We then implement such a distributed control system through a large-scale simulation of the German autobahn road network containing thousands of vehicles. The simulation shows fuel savings from 1-9%, with savings exceeding 5% when only a few thousand vehicles participate in the system. We assume no vehicles will travel more than the time required for their shortest paths for the majority of the paper. We conclude the results by analyzing how a relaxation of this assumption can further reduce fuel use.
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