Investigation of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control with Experimental Validation

Abstract

Connected vehicle environment paves the pathway for future road transportation. Current researches are not only focused on improving traffic mobility and safety, but also vehicles’ fuel consumption and emissions. Therefore, a Hardware-in-the-Loop-System (HiLS) test-bed has been developed to provide the facility to evaluate different connected vehicles application. A laboratory powertrain research platform with a real engine, hydrostatic dynamometer and a virtual powertrain model to represent a vehicle, is connected remotely to a microscopic traffic simulator (VISSIM) and a connected vehicle controller, across a network using socket programming methods. Fuel and emissions measurements are obtained using highly sophisticated measurement equipment. Further, using this test-bed a comprehensive evaluation of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control(CACC) application has been conducted to compare the fuel and emissions of CACC vehicle and non-CACC vehicle in a traffic network simulated in VISSIM.