Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.11p DCF for Multiplatooning Communications with Autonomous Vehicles

Platooning has been identified as a promising framework to improve road capacity, on-road safety, and energy efficiency. Enabling communications among vehicles in platoons is expected to enhance platoon control by keeping constant intervehicle and interplatoon distances. Characterizing the performance of intra-and interplatoon communications in terms of throughput and packet transmission delays is crucial for validating the effectiveness of information sharing on platoon control. In this paper, we introduce an IEEE 802.11p-based communication model for multiplatooning (a chain of platoons) scenarios. We present a probabilistic performance analysis of distributed-coordination-function-based intra-and interplatoon communications. Expressions for the transmission attempt probability, collision probability, packet delay, packet-dropping probability, and network throughput are derived. Numerical results show that the performance of interplatoon communications is affected by the transmissions of the first and last vehicles in a multiplatoon. This effect is reduced with an increase of the platoon number in the multiplatoon. In addition, the communication performance for three typical multiplatooning application scenarios is investigated, indicating that the IEEE 802.11p-based communication can support the timely delivery of vehicle information among platoons for diverse on-road applications.