Design and Evaluation of a Beam Tracking Technique Applicable to Tactical Platooning Scenarios

Tactical platooning enables autonomous vehicles to operate in tightly coordinated formations, which is especially critical in military scenarios where they must execute evasive maneuvers and synchronized movements to avoid enemy threats in complex battlefield environments. Because this operation involves real-time data sharing with minimal latency to support the continuous exchange of large volumes of sensor data and control signals, stable and high-capacity links between vehicles are essential. To address this need, we propose a beam tracking technique to facilitate efficient inter-vehicle directional communication, particularly in highly dynamic and mobility-intensive situations. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is employed to accurately track the position data of the leading vehicle at a high frequency. To ensure robustness and reliability under adverse weather conditions where LiDAR measurements may be degraded or unavailable, RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) is incorporated into the UKF (Unscented Kalman Filter) as an alternative sensing modality. Additionally, a beam selection method is integrated to enhance the performance of the proposed technique. To verify its effectiveness, we developed a vehicle mobility and wireless channel model and random-sample simulation were conducted.