HILS-Based Development of a Relative Position and Orientation Measurement System for Platooning Vehicles with Coupling Devices

摘要

We propose a new platooning vehicle that uses a coupling device not for the traction of following vehicles but for the measurement of relative position and orientation between leading and following vehicles. The following vehicles are driven by their own motors. This paper reports development of the relative position and orientation measurement system. In the coupling device, multiple distance sensors are equipped around the pin. These sensors acquire the distance between the pin and a hexagonal ring. The array of distance values is converted to the relative position and orientation of vehicles using two methods: (1) Geometric method and (2) Data look-up method. After a prototype of the proposed measurement system is implemented, it is evaluated using hardware in the loop simulation (HILS) that simulates multiple vehicles' platooning drive. Therefore, the system capabilities have been evaluated not only by the measurement precision but also by the platooning performance. The experimentally obtained results demonstrate that the proposed measurement system is sufficiently valid and feasible. The data look-up method exhibits especially superior performance because it uses no geometric conditions explicitly.