A Digital Twin and Consensus Empowered Cooperative Control Framework for Platoon-Based Autonomous Driving

Platoon-based autonomous driving is indispensable for traffic automation, but it confronts substantial constraints in rugged terrains with unreliable links and scarce communication resources. This paper proposes a novel hierarchical Digital Twin (DT) and consensus empowered cooperative control framework for safe driving in harsh areas. Specifically, leveraging intra-platoon information exchange, one platoon-level DT is constructed on the leader and multiple vehicle-level DTs are distributed among platoon members. The leader first makes critical platoon-driving decisions based on the platoon-level DT. Then, considering the impact of unreliable links on the platoon-level DT accuracy and the consequent risk of unsafe decision-making, a distributed consensus scheme is proposed to negotiate critical decisions efficiently. Upon successful negotiation, vehicles proceed to execute critical decisions, relying on their vehicle-level DTs. Otherwise, a Space-Air-Ground-Integrated-Network (SAGIN) enabled information exchange is utilized to update the platoon-level DT for subsequent safe decision-making in scenarios with unreliable links, no roadside units, and obstructed platoons. Furthermore, based on this framework, an adaptive platooning scheme is designed to minimize total delay and ensure driving safety. Simulation results indicate that our proposed scheme improves driving safety by 21.1% and reduces total delay by 24.2% in harsh areas compared with existing approaches.