Cooperative Intersection Control based on virtual platooning

This paper proposes a cooperative intersection control strategy, which aims to decrease the number of accidents and to increase the traffic flow at intersections. Existing high-level automation methodologies mainly focus on the determination of a safe crossing sequence of the involved vehicles, typically ignoring realistic vehicle dynamics aspects. The solution proposed in this paper, referred to as cooperative intersection control (CIC), takes into account the dynamics of the vehicles and is based on the novel concept of virtual platooning. Virtual platooning allows to form platoons of vehicles that are in different lanes of the intersection and have different directional intentions. Herewith, both safe passage of the vehicles through the intersection and a high intersection throughput (due to close "virtual" vehicle following) can be achieved. The performance of the proposed strategy is assessed, and a comparison between the CIC and an intersection controlled with traffic lights is presented.