Abstract
In order for mobile robots to move in convoy, a small platooning technique based on adaptive cruise control (ACC) and a simple clustering method among adjacent robots have been proposed by the author. In the previous works, however, homogeneous mobile robots have been assumed in terms of controllers. In this paper, on the other hand, heterogeneous mobile robots depending on different controllers are assumed. For these robots, a more powerful small platooning technique focusing on a velocity distribution is proposed. In the small platooning methodology, variable time headway in ACC model and dynamic environmental rule are presented. The former is for adjusting a time headway of robots in a congested segment in a lane according to the congestion degree, and the latter is provided into a bottleneck lane where the robots move most slowly so as to externally regulate the behavior. In simulation experiments, the previous and proposed small platooning techniques are applied to heterogeneous mobile robots, and finally, the effectiveness of the proposed small platooning technique is shown.
