Date of Award:

5-2014

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Ryan Gerdes

Committee

Ryan Gerdes

Committee

YangQuan Chen

Committee

Donald Cripps

Abstract

The Automated Electric Transportation Group (AET) at Utah State University proposes to demonstrate the benefits and feasibility of vehicle platooning. A platoon is a transportation system, formed by vehicles that are controlled automatically by computers (the driver does not operate the vehicle while cruising). Platoons are interesting in view of the future because they present many advantages: increase highway capacity and safety, reduce travel time, save energy, and reduce stress for human drivers. There are many problems to solve in order to make vehicle platooning a reality. In this work, the focus is not on making it feasible, but rather the interest in placed on how, assuming platoons are a reality, a malicious party could exploit it to its favor. One example could be that of two shipping companies X and Y. Company X tries to sabotage the operation of company Y, in order to make it spend more fuel than required, and thus raise its transportation costs. By using computer software, a test platform was developed. It incorporates very well studied models of platoon control, and vehicle fuel consumption. The results from these simulations show that, in fact, such an attack could exist and make a platoon spend up to 140% extra fuel. Still, there are many recommendations that can be made to limit the effectiveness of such attack.

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