A Practical Implementation of Day-3 Cooperative Intersection with Automated Connected Mini-Cars

Lorenzo Farina, Vittorio Todisco, Federico Gavioli, Salvatore Iandolo, Francesco Moretti, Giuseppe Perrone, Matteo Piccoli, Francesco Raviglione, Marco Rapelli, Antonio Solida, Claudio Casetti, Paolo Burgio, Carlo Augusto Grazia, Alessandro Bazzi

Cooperative driving enabled by connected and automated vehicles is expected to improve traffic efficiency and safety, particularly at intersections where traditional control mechanisms such as traffic lights introduce delays and unnecessary stops. Although cooperative intersection management algorithms have been widely studied, experimental demonstrations remain limited. This paper presents a real-time demonstration of cooperative intersection management using connected autonomous mini-cars. The testbed consists of multiple 1:10 scale vehicles equipped with autonomous driving capabilities and wireless communication modules that interact with a centralized controller responsible for scheduling their crossing of the intersection. Vehicles approaching the intersection exchange messages with the controller to set the appropriate mobility profile to traverse the intersection without stopping. The demonstration integrates autonomous driving, wireless communication, and cooperative control in a single experimental platform, providing a practical environment for validating cooperative intersection management concepts for future intelligent transportation systems.