  In this paper, we study (homogeneous) predecessor-following platoons in which
the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications are affected by random packet
losses. We model the overall platoon as a stochastic hybrid system and analyse
its string stability via a small-gain approach. For nonlinear platoons, we
illustrate how the different elements of the platoon have an impact on string
stability, such as platoon topology and vehicle scheduling. For linear
time-invariant platoons, we provide an explicit string stability condition that
illustrates the interplay between the channel success probability, transmission
rate, and time headway constant. Lastly, we illustrate our results by numerical
simulations.
