Flexible Architecture for Testing Connected Vehicles in Realistic Traffic

Connected vehicles have the potential to transform the way we commute and travel in a multitude of ways. Vehicles will cooperate and coordinate with each other to solve problems appropriate for the environment in which they are operating. In this paper, we focus on the development of test equipment that includes the infrastructure and vehicles to measure and record all of the information necessary to quantify the performance of cooperative driving algorithms in realistic scenarios. The system allows tests to include real vehicles on the track and virtual vehicles in a digital twin. Real and virtual vehicles interact through the road-side units and test facility network, allowing each test vehicle to receive messages from virtual vehicles as well as the infrastructure. Messages transmitted from the test vehicles are received in the digital twin, allowing the real vehicle to interact with virtual vehicles. This provides the capability to test algorithms in congested traffic without the expense and risk of conducting tests with many cars. The system is shown to allow for real-time operation of connected vehicles in closed loop operation using industry standard networks, along with a protocol for centralized traffic management, which is not currently standardized. Tests have been performed at highway speeds. The architecture has a low barrier to entry application programming interface for its vehicle to infrastructure network that utilizes the Robotic Operating System interface. The paper describes the development and integration of components and protocols, characterization of the network performance, methods for recording data referenced to a single clock, and demonstration of the repeatability of measurements made on test vehicles. The discussion at the end of the paper looks at current research on the impact of cooperative driving algorithms on energy efficiency and traffic flow.