Cooperative automated driving: from platooning to maneuvering

Cooperative automated driving (CAD) combines autonomous driving with cooperative driving, thereby yielding a powerful approach to improve traffic efficiency and safety. A very well-known example of CAD is platooning. However, when extending this one-dimensional application to two-dimensional maneuvering, covering a large number of traffic scenarios while also including safety threats imposed by other traffic or failing components of the automation system, a complex control system architecture may arise. To address this challenge, an agent-based control system architecture is proposed employing explicit decision making. This architecture is scalable with respect to the number of traffic scenarios that can be handled, capable of including safety features, and provides the flexibility to adopt various controller design approaches at the same time.