Key influencing factors in vehicle platoons: a systematic study and review

Vehicle platooning presents a promising approach to enhancing traffic efficiency in autonomous driving. This technique offers numerous benefits, including reduced travel time, lower emissions, improved fuel efficiency, and the potential to mitigate traffic congestion. Despite the aforementioned advantages, the technology is still in its developmental stages, facing several significant technical issues. Key challenges arise from the evolving nature of the vehicle platoon, including vehicle heterogeneity, external disturbances like wind affecting longitudinal dynamics, and delays or interruptions in communication networks. For these reasons, this paper conducts a simulation-based research into the impact of various factors, such as communication delays, network disconnections, external disturbances, among others, on the string stability of vehicle platoons. The simulation results reveal that network disconnections have the most detrimental effect, as they can lead to severe string instability. Other factors, such as external disturbances, do not compromise string stability but may result in steady-state tracking errors.