Organization of autonomous truck platoon considering energy saving and pavement fatigue

Autonomous truck platoons are currently proposed to drive in an aligned form for saving fuel, which will cause repeated wheel loads and shorten pavements' service life. Therefore, platoon's form needs to be reconsidered. Several forms were proposed from the aspects of vehicle number, longitudinal interval and lateral offset. Their influence was evaluated based on the computational fluid dynamics simulations and finite element model. Parameters in the simulations were collected from laboratory tests. The average fuel-saving rate for a two-truck platoon is 3.8-8.9% when the longitudinal interval varies from 5L to 0.5L. The fuel-saving rate, however, grows at a decreasing rate with the increase in truck number. Besides, the lateral offset is found to be effective when organizing the two-truck platoon, and above 30% decrease in pavement fatigue damage and 8% fuel savings will be obtained concurrently. The findings help the policy makers to reconsider the management of platoons.

Automated summary

Research has found that the average fuel-saving rate for a two-truck platoon is 3.8-8.9% when the longitudinal interval varies from 5L to 0.5L. As the number of trucks increases, the fuel-saving rate grows at a decreasing rate. Lateral offset is effective in organizing a two-truck platoon, resulting in a decrease in pavement fatigue damage and fuel savings.