CVIP: A Protocol for Complex Interactions Among Connected Vehicles

Automated vehicles need to interact: to create mutual awareness and to coordinate maneuvers. How this interaction shall be achieved is still an open issue. Several new protocols are discussed for cooperative services such as changing lanes or overtaking, e.g., within the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). These communication protocols are, however, usually specific to individual maneuvers or based on implicit assumptions on other vehicles' intentions. To enable reuse and support extensibility towards future maneuvers, we propose CVIP, a protocol framework for complex vehicular interactions. CVIP supports explicitly negotiating maneuvers between the involved vehicles and allows monitoring maneuver progress via status updates. We present our design in detail and demonstrate via simulations that it enables complex inter-vehicle interactions in a flexible, efficient and robust manner. We also discuss open questions to be answered before complex interactions among automated vehicles can become a reality.