Abstract: In view of the lack of model-based description method of communication performance indicators in the current research of vehicle platoon communication system, the end-to-end delay is described based on three-parameter Burr distribution in this paper, according to the features of wireless network communication delay. According to the probability distribution law of wireless signal power intensity, with consideration of the effects of obstacle obstruction in the line-of-sight propagation, the description method of packet error rate (PER) is established based on Nakagami-m distribution. Then a communication protocol is formulated for vehicle platoon application, and the communication system platform is developed based on dedicated short range communication. Finally, multi-scenario vehicle tests are conducted to verify the correctness of the description method. The results show that the method proposed can characterize the performance features of vehicle platoon communication system under actual conditions, and reflect the effects of environmental factors on communication performance, suitable for the control of vehicle platoons

Key words: vehicle platoons, communication performance, DSRC, end-to-end delay, packet error rate