California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

The purpose of this report is to investigate the effect of selected parameter variations on the response of a platoon. The response of a platoon under different control algorithms is also examined. A four-car platoon with prescribed lead car dynamics was used for simulations and vehicles in the platoon were assumed to be identical. Convergence studies of the numerical integration were undertaken and convergence was verified. The purpose of these simulations was to build a knowledge base with regard to nonlinear platoon responses, to be used as an initial guide in developing simpler analytical models and to aid in identifying those parameters that most significantly affect platooning operations.