A control architecture for integrated cooperative cruise control and collision warning systems

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical control architecture for an enhanced variant of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC), which would include some Cooperative Forward Collision Warning (CFCW) functionality. Simply put, a CACC system is a more sophisticated variant of cruise control. By a control architecture we mean a specific way of organizing the motion control and navigation functions performed by the cars. It is convenient to organize the functions into hierarchical layers. This way, a complex design problem is partitioned into a number of more manageable sub-problems that are addressed in separate layers. This paper discusses vehicle control requirements and maps them onto a layered control architecture. The formalization of the hierarchy is accomplished in terms of the specific functions accomplished by each layer and of the interfaces between layers. The implementation of the layers is discussed and illustrative examples are provided.