Impact of packet loss on CACC string stability performance

Lei, C.; van Eenennaam, E. M.; Wolterink, W. Klein; Karagiannis, G.; Heijenk, G.; Ploeg, J. · 2011 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1109/itst.2011.6060086

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Summary

This paper investigates the impact of wireless communication imperfections, specifically packet loss, on the string stability performance of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) systems. While traditional Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) improves traffic safety, it often fails to maintain string stability, meaning disturbances like sudden braking can amplify as they propagate through a line of vehicles, potentially causing traffic jams or collisions. CACC addresses this by using wireless communication to share acceleration data between vehicles. The authors aim to quantify how packet loss ratios, beacon sending frequencies, and time headways affect this stability, addressing the gap in understanding how imperfect Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) influence CACC efficacy. To evaluate these factors, the researchers developed a coupled simulation framework integrating three distinct simulators: SIMULINK for the vehicle controller logic, SUMO for traffic mobility, and OMNeT++ with the MiXiM framework for wireless network behavior. The simulation modeled a platoon of ten vehicles on a straight road, where the leading vehicle performed sudden deceleration or acceleration maneuvers. The CACC controller utilized radar data and wireless beacon data containing the preceding vehicle’s acceleration. The experiments varied packet loss ratios (0% to 50%), beacon sending frequencies (5Hz to 25Hz), and time headways (0.5s to 2s). Packet loss was artificially generated using a uniform distribution, and statistical accuracy was ensured through multiple simulation runs with 90% confidence intervals. The results demonstrate that packet loss significantly degrades string stability. As the packet loss ratio increased, the velocity fluctuations and undershoots of the last vehicle in the platoon increased, indicating that disturbances were amplified upstream rather than dampened. Conversely, higher beacon sending frequencies mitigated this effect by ensuring vehicles received fresher acceleration data; at 25Hz, packet loss had minimal impact on stability. The study also found that increasing the time headway improved string stability, as larger distances allowed following vehicles to react more smoothly to disturbances, though this trade-off reduces road capacity. These trends were consistent across both deceleration and acceleration scenarios. The study concludes that strict requirements regarding beacon sending frequency and packet loss ratios are necessary to guarantee string stability in CACC systems, particularly when operating with small time headways to maximize traffic throughput. The findings highlight that the reliability of the wireless communication channel is a critical determinant of CACC performance. The authors recommend future work to investigate the impact of correlated (burst) packet losses and losses caused by realistic channel conditions, rather than the artificial uniform distribution used in this study, to further refine CACC controller designs for real-world deployment.

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• v2x connected vehicle