Docking
Automated vehicles operate most efficiently in platoons. Platoons can increase highway capacity by two to three times and reduce fuel consumption. Smaller distances between vehicles maximize the advantages. However, if the following distance gets too small, the ride becomes unpleasantly jerky due to small speed adjustments. The Elcano Project has prototyped a physical coupling mechanism that uses springs to absorb the minor shocks of imperfectly matched velocities. The physical couple allows shrinking the following distance to zero, maximizing the benefits of platooning. The platoon would operate as an all-wheel drive vehicle, with each module independently powered and steered.
The couple is designed to let vehicles couple and uncouple while in motion, letting vehicles dynamically join or leave a platoon. Ongoing work aims to demonstrate automatic docking and undocking.
Work on the coupler was done by Devin Taing, Li-Ling Plume, Fletcher Kurita, Rebecca Sasten (2023) and Sam Weller, Hong Nguyen, Johnny Kamacho, Micah Lee (2024).
The docking maneuver requires wireless communication and good sensors. Students have built a redundant sensing system with two parts:
- Intel RealSense depth camera using stereo
- A position sensitive device (PSD) that finds the brightest spot in an image. It is used with high intensity infrared beacons on the back of the target vehicle. With several of these beacons, the distance and angles between vehicles are found, using a method for spacecraft docking: https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-08-2820/MORRIS-THESIS.pdf
Students working on the sensors included Ethan Costea, Ethan Phonsuk, Rongjie Chen, John Haacke, George Hinds, Faris Stitou (2026)
Once the vehicles are connected, they no longer depend on wireless. The couple carry wires for the automotive standard CAN bus, enabling the entire platoon to be controlled as a single vehicle.