Benefits of V2V Communication for Autonomous and Connected Vehicles

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the benefits of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication for autonomous vehicles and provide results on how V2V information helps reduce employable time headway in the presence of parasitic lags. For a string of vehicles adopting a Constant Time Headway Policy (CTHP) and availing the on-board information of predecessor's vehicle position and velocity, the minimum employable time headway ($h_{\min}$) must be lower bounded by $2\tau_0$ for string stability, where $\tau_0$ is the maximum parasitic actuation lag. In this paper, we quantify the benefits of using V2V communication in terms of a reduction in the employable time headway: (1) If the position and velocity information of $r$ immediately preceding vehicles is used, then $h_{\min}$ can be reduced to ${4\tau_0}/{(1+r)}$; (2) furthermore, if the acceleration of `$r$' immediately preceding vehicles is used, then $h_{\min}$ can be reduced to ${2\tau_0}/{(1+r)}$; and (3) if the position, velocity and acceleration of the immediate and the $r$-th predecessors are used, then $h_{\min} \ge {2\tau_0}/{(1+r)}$. Note that cases (2) and (3) provide the same lower bound on the minimum employable time headway; however, case (3) requires much less communicated information.