Application of Virtual Leaders in Long Vehicle Platoons Operating with Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control Using IEEE 802.11p Transmission

This paper introduces the Virtual Leader-Predecessor Following (VLPF) information flow topology to support communication between vehicles moving in a long platoon under the constant distance policy. The virtual leaders in the proposed VLPF architecture are spread across the platoon with specified density and act as local leaders for a certain number of cars following them. Such a topology ensures that distances between vehicles and their local leaders are small enough to guarantee reliable wireless communication, and thus enables much higher platoon lengths. At the same time, the proposed solution does not introduce any additional communication overhead or delays.