Laboratory Emulator Using Connected Scaled Cars to Study Traffic Waves

Abstract

Traffic density has become one of the substantial problems in urban areas. Saturated roads increase the likelihood of vehicular collisions, mostly since the distance between the cars is decreased significantly. The emerging technology of communication between cars is suggested as an enabling technology to optimize traffic flow control. One solution to improve traffic flow on dense roads is to share kinematic properties among near cars. This could enable drivers or an automated system to get better decisions with respect to following the preceding cars. Control algorithms for cars driving in heavy traffic that considers the velocities, acceleration and spacing of the neighboring vehicles ahead, could eliminate traffic waves and reduce tail to head collisions. The purpose of this work is to design and construct a lab testbed based on scaled electric cars, which are remotely controlled by a PC, and to implement driving algorithms for these cars assuming the kinematic properties of the adjacent cars are known.