Cooperative adaptive cruise control using visible light communication

Abstract

Control of semi/full — autonomous vehicles and visible light communication (VLC) are very hot research topics in their own area of disciplines, and these topics are expected to be more popular in the near future. When it comes to the semi/full — autonomous vehicles, the greatest difference from conventional vehicles is that these vehicles need to communicate with each other in order to maintain the safety of passengers. In this study we had a multidisciplinary approach from communication and control sides and we proposed a communication system with VLC for a cheaper vehicular communication, instead of IEEE 802.11p Wi-Fi protocol. Since VLC can be achieved by using onboard LED lights of current vehicles in market and there is no need for additional hardware (except receiver). In continuation of the study, we implemented a sliding mode control algorithm, and this way the cooperative adaptive cruise controller (CACC) using VLC has been completed. It is observed that distance between two vehicles has been protected in the results of the simulation and study has been successfully concluded.