Cooperative Collision Avoidance in a Connected Vehicle Environment

Connected vehicle (CV) technology is among the most heavily researched areas in both the academia and industry. The vehicle to vehicle (V2V), vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle to pedestrian (V2P) communication capabilities enable critical situational awareness. In some cases, these vehicle communication safety capabilities can overcome the shortcomings of other sensor safety capabilities because of external conditions such as 'No Line of Sight' (NLOS) or very harsh weather conditions. Connected vehicles will help cities and states reduce traffic congestion, improve fuel efficiency and improve the safety of the vehicles and pedestrians. On the road, cars will be able to communicate with one another, automatically transmitting data such as speed, position, and direction, and send alerts to each other if a crash seems imminent. The main focus of this paper is the implementation of Cooperative Collision Avoidance (CCA) for connected vehicles. It leverages the Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication technology to create a real-time implementable collision avoidance algorithm along with decision-making for a vehicle that communicates with other vehicles. Four distinct collision risk environments are simulated on a cost effective Connected Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) Hardware in the Loop (HIL) simulator to test the overall algorithm in real-time with real electronic control and communication hardware.