On the Analysis of Platooned Vehicular Networks on Highways

2026-01-27

AI Summary

This study addresses the unclear impact of platooned vehicle coordination on connectivity and load distribution in V2V/V2I communications within highway scenarios. For the first time, a one-dimensional Matérn cluster process (MCP) is employed to model platooned traffic, integrated with a one-dimensional Poisson point process (PPP) for non-platooned vehicles and PPP-deployed roadside units (RSUs). Leveraging stochastic geometry, the work analytically characterizes the typical user’s service load, SINR coverage probability, and rate coverage performance, while introducing the meta-distribution to capture spatial heterogeneity and reliability of these metrics. Both theoretical analysis and simulations reveal that platooning significantly reshapes RSU load distribution and exerts a non-monotonic influence on coverage performance, offering critical theoretical insights for the design of intelligent transportation systems.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Intelligent Robots: Localization, Mapping, and Navigation
• Application Domains: Transportation

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

Vehicular platooning refers to coordinated and close movement of vehicular users (VUs) traveling together along a common route segment, offering strategic benefits such as reduced fuel costs, lower emissions, and improved traffic flow. {Highways offer a natural setting for platooning due to extended travel distances, yet their potential remains underexplored, particularly in terms of communication and connectivity. Given that effective platooning relies on robust vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) links, understanding connectivity dynamics on highways is essential.} In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of vehicular platooning on a highway and its impact on the performance of two forms of vehicular communications -- namely V2V and V2I communication -- compared to independent vehicle movement on a highway. The vehicular networks consists of road-side units (RSUs), modeled as a 1D Poisson point process (PPP), to provide the vehicular connectivity to the VUs. VUs are modeled as 1D PPP under the non-platooned traffic scenario (N-PTS) and as a 1D Matern cluster process (MCP) under the platooned traffic scenario (PTS). We evaluate the distribution on the per-RSU load, representing the number of VUs served, for the typical and tagged RSU. Additionally, we derive coverage probability (CP) and rate coverage (RC), which measures the probability of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and achievable rate above a specified threshold at the typical VU along with their meta distribution (MD), providing a deeper understanding of the reliability and variability of these metrics across different spatial distributions of VUs and RSUs. Finally, we validate our theoretical findings through simulations and provide numerical insights into the impact of different traffic patterns on RSU load distribution, CP, and RC performance.

Problem

• vehicular platooning
• V2V communication
• V2I communication
• highway connectivity
• vehicular networks

Innovation

• platooned vehicular networks
• Matern cluster process
• meta distribution
• V2V/V2I communication
• stochastic geometry