California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

This is the final report of the research program “Compatibility of Vehicles Within a Platoon (MOU-156).” This research area is continuing under a different, contract and thus, although the work presented herein is complete unto itself, the overall research goals laid out at the beginning of the program will not be attained until the conclusion of the entire related research effort.

The material presented in this report provides a description of a simple dynamical model that can be used for determining the physical interaction of vehicles in a collision scenario. Such a model is of use in platoon simulations for which vehicle-to-vehicle impacts occur. Due to the restricted amount of real world data, only a very basic model can reliably be presented.

A source of real world collision data is identified, and a procedure for determining model parameters to match the data is given. Model implementation issues are discussed, and the results of the completed model are presented.