Kinematic Design for Platoon-Lane-Change Maneuvers

For the lane-change maneuvers under the architectures of automated highway systems, most researchers focus on the maneuvers for a single vehicle to change lanes. However, not only are the lane-change maneuvers for a single vehicle needed, but a platoon-lane-change (PLC) maneuver is also required in some situations for an entire platoon to change lanes. The goal of this paper is to design PLC maneuvers under the coordinated- and noncoordinated-platooning infrastructures. Two PLC maneuvers are proposed in this paper, and they are the leader and predecessor PLC maneuvers, where the predecessor PLC maneuver is considered in two cases, i.e., the intraplatoon spacing less than or greater than the minimum safety spacing. We use SmartAHS to simulate these PLC maneuvers, and the simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of these PLC maneuvers while taking the safety and comfort of passengers into account.