Cooperative driving: A comprehensive perspective, the role of communications, and its potential development

Inter-vehicle communications may have many reasons to be, but improving road safety and efficiency is arguably the only reason that may differentiate them from other communication infrastructures and justify a special effort in their study and deployment. This work overviews (some of) the past research on the topic to draw some lessons for the future, and tries to dissipate some of the fog that still veils the future of cooperative and autonomous vehicles: Can communications improve mobility or selfish-autonomous vehicles will dominate roads in the future? The paper is not a survey, but rather a critical analysis of what Cooperative Driving (CD) means and how communication is essential for some functions and useful for others, never detrimental. We dedicate a special part to platooning, as iconic application of CD, one of the most studied and also closer to be market ready, at least technologically. A final section discusses the potentialities of CD and what threatens its adoption.