Development of Truck Platooning System Including Emergency Braking Function with Vehicle-in-the-Loop (VIL) Testing 2023-01-0571

Platoon is a system that connects vehicles through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology to maintain a short distance between vehicles while driving on the road. To improve fuel efficiency, many automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are interested in developing and demonstrating real-world platoon system. However, it is hard for heavy duty trucks to develop this system due to the difficulty of maintaining the targeted intervehicle distance not only for fuel efficiency but also for safety in case of emergency braking. Because of this critical safety issue in the emergency situation, the platoon system for heavy duty trucks can be hardly demonstrated or tested in real vehicle environment. The relatively complex system and the slow response characteristic of commercial vehicles makes this even more difficult.

In this paper, focusing on the emergency braking function implemented through the V2V communication interface, we introduce the platoon system developed by Hyundai Motor, and explain the system configuration, technology, and control strategy. While there have been various efforts to develop the emergency braking system of the platoon system in a simulation environment in previous studies, we conduct real vehicle-in-the-loop (VIL) test with three semi-trailer trucks. Through repeated VIL tests, we could identify certain vehicle data to be transmitted and received via V2V communication during emergency braking situation and the corresponding signals were properly tailored to reduce the inherent delay. Finally, by reducing the delay of the front vehicle’s deceleration signal, the safe distance gap between vehicles is secured even after the emergency braking. VIL test results of the system are also included to validate the effectiveness of the proposed platoon system.