Experimental verification of vehicle platoon control algorithms

Organizing a group of vehicles into a vehicle platoon in a way that, except for the leading vehicle, each platoon member can be autonomously driven has been a research goal for decades. Among other benefits this results in a decrease of fuel consump- tion and also in the driver’s workload and an increase in a better use of road capacity. The recent developments in the area of ac- tive control systems for vehicles make it possible to realize more and more autonomous functions and the above defined cooper- ation between vehicles seems to be increasingly feasible. This article aims to point out that today it is possible to reach this goal without vehicle specific software and hardware.