Vehicular platooning experiments using autonomous slot cars

The paper reports on an affordable experimental platform for vehicular platooning. The experimental platoon consists of several autonomous slot cars (typical experiments take 5 to 20 slot cars), hence it fits into an indoor laboratory. Each car is equipped with an onboard controller and it can measure its own velocity, acceleration, and distances to its nearest neighbors. Furthermore, each car can communicate with other vehicles including the leader of the platoon. A convenient user interface allows to store, analyze and visualize the experimental data in Matlab. The platform can be used for demonstrating various decentralized and distributed control strategies for vehicular platoons, such as predecessor following, (a)symmetric bidirectional control or cooperative adaptive cruise control. Moreover, the phenomenon of string instability can be observed in experiments due to the fast dynamics of slot cars. The technical design details including the source codes and electronic schematics are shared with the public.