US 12,340,696 B2
Platooning system
Koichi Okuda, Toyota (JP); Masafumi Yamamoto, Nagakute (JP); Yoshito Sekiguchi, Kariya (JP); Yuuki Makino, Aichi-gun (JP); and Atsushi Tabata, Okazaki (JP)
Assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA, Toyota (JP)
Filed by TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA, Toyota (JP)
Filed on Jan. 30, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/161,150.
Claims priority of application No. 2022-016727 (JP), filed on Feb. 4, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0252901 A1, Aug. 10, 2023
Int. Cl. G08G 1/00 (2006.01); B60W 10/10 (2012.01); B60W 60/00 (2020.01)
CPC G08G 1/22 (2013.01) [B60W 10/10 (2013.01); B60W 60/0025 (2020.02); B60W 2510/10 (2013.01)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A platooning system for platoon participating vehicles including a leading vehicle and following vehicles executing automatic follow-up running in line with a predetermined intervehicle distance between adjacent vehicles from the leading vehicle,
the platoon participating vehicles each comprising a driving force source, an automatic transmission capable of shifting to a plurality of gear stages each having a different gear ratio, and an in-vehicle control device automatically controlling output of the driving force source and the gear stages of the automatic transmission,
the platooning system comprising a platoon control device connected via wireless communication to the platoon participating vehicles configured to operate at least shifting of the automatic transmission,
the platoon control device executing platoon shift control that shifts the automatic transmission of each of the platoon participating vehicles via the in-vehicle control device in order of a vehicle position from a tail side among the platoon participating vehicles in case of satisfying shift conditions defined in advance to allow the driving force source to work in a proper working range, and
after termination of the platoon shift control and return to normal shift control, the in-vehicle control device limits shifting executed under the normal shift control until predefined transition conditions are satisfied.