http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/sci-tech/volvo-autobrake-radar-system-detects-kangaroos-cyclists/story-fni0c0qq-1226672922167

Technology Volvo auto-brake radar system detects kangaroos, cyclists

SWEDISH car maker Volvo is developing technology that can avoid kangaroo collisions. There are about 20,000 kangaroo strikes on Australia’s roads each year according to insurance industry data. But Volvo is working on a system that uses radar and camera technology to detect rogue roos -and automatically slam on the brakes if the driver does not. It’s an advancement of technology originally developed to detect pedestrians; later this year the same setup will enable selected Volvo cars to also detect cyclists.

“It will be a challenge to detect kangaroos because they are not as predictable as livestock and other large animals,” said Martin Magnusson, a leading Volvo safety engineer. “But we think we can come up with a way to detect them.” Volvo is in the early stages of development but “animal-detection” technology should be on the road within three years.

“We are starting with the large animals first, the ones that pose the greatest risk to drivers, such as a moose, a horse, or a cow, then we are working on ways to detect other animals, including kangaroos,” Magnusson said. Unfortunately man’s best friend – dogs and cats – are not on the list. “Driver safety is not an issue when it comes to a collision with those animals. Of course it’s a pity, and I happen to like cats, but there are no plans to (detect dogs or cats),” Magnusson said.

Volvo says it will do most of the development work on kangaroos by using computer simulations.It will then create a kangaroo crash test dummy similar to the one used by Holden for decades. In the final stages of development Volvo says it will test its hi-tech system on kangaroos in Australia. “Eventually, we will have to test it in an environment with real kangaroos,” Magnusson said. The system will not swerve the car to avoid a kangaroo but will instead apply the brakes at full force to reduce the impact speed from, say, 110km/h to 70km/h. A radar sensor in the grille scans the road 100 metres ahead and a camera in the windscreen works with the radar to detect which way the object is moving to help the computer decide what action to take, if any. The system processes 15 images every second and can react to an emergency in half the time a human driver can, Volvo claims.

Magnusson says it takes 1.2 seconds for an attentive driver to detect danger and then apply the brakes, compared to about 0.5 second for the computer system. “This truly is state of the art technology, because the brakes can be primed in milliseconds, much faster than a human,” Magnusson said. “And we are only at the beginning of what is possible.” Volvo says it is not designed to take responsibility away from drivers. “It is a back-up in case they are distracted,” Magnusson said. The Volvo system will join a long line of gadgets designed to avoid crashes with kangaroos. Australian inventions mounted to the front of cars include plastic “whistles” and electronic sound transmitters that apparently only kangaroos can hear. However, a 2006 study by the CSIRO found electronic sound emitters were not effective at deterring kangaroos. It tested one such device by switching it on in a paddock full of kangaroos and they didn’t budge.

Interesting stuff.

I was always sceptical about those roo whistles.

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

party_pants said:

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

party_pants said:

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

Well you saved a kangaroo.

Angus Prune said:

party_pants said:

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

What if he isn’t?

party_pants said:

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

I was thinking that. Or a corner. Gravel shoulder. Little skippy crouching in drainage ditch making last minute dash not detected.

It is supposed to be a back-up.

Angus Prune said:

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

Really? Not the tail-gaiting on Great Northern Highway because public roads are now a haul road routes (grumbles and mutters, don’t mind me) …

neomyrtus_ said:

Angus Prune said:

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

Really? Not the tail-gaiting on Great Northern Highway because public roads are now a haul road routes (grumbles and mutters, don’t mind me) …

I was thinking of that.

party_pants said:

Angus Prune said:

party_pants said:

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

What if he isn’t?

Then…..he shouldn’t be driving a truck, and will probably kill someone at some point anyway?

Angus Prune said:

party_pants said:

Angus Prune said:

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

What if he isn’t?

Then…..he shouldn’t be driving a truck, and will probably kill someone at some point anyway?

But he is carrying 20 tons of mining equipment that was needed on site yesterday, and there’s no railway from the city to the mining districts. If not him then someone else will take his place.

party_pants said:

Angus Prune said:

party_pants said:

What if he isn’t?

Then…..he shouldn’t be driving a truck, and will probably kill someone at some point anyway?

But he is carrying 20 tons of mining equipment that was needed on site yesterday, and there’s no railway from the city to the mining districts. If not him then someone else will take his place.

How is any of that the fault of Volvo? Does a swedish car company need to fix the Australian transport industry before developing radar-controlled braking systems? It’s still great for the people who don’t always have a B-double behind them on the road, and people in areas with high density of pedestrians and cyclists…

Angus Prune said:

How is any of that the fault of Volvo? Does a swedish car company need to fix the Australian transport industry before developing radar-controlled braking systems? It’s still great for the people who don’t always have a B-double behind them on the road, and people in areas with high density of pedestrians and cyclists…

Volvo probably don’t need to take it upon themselves to save the kangaroo from collisions with cars. There’s still lots left. Besides, we’re putting Darwinian selection pressure on them to weed out the ones with poor spacial awareness and reflexes, eventually kangaroos will learn how to avoid cars by leaping away from them instead of in front of them.

>>>>The system will not swerve the car to avoid a kangaroo but will instead apply the brakes at full force to reduce the impact speed from, say, 110km/h to 70km/h.

As most roo collisions happen at night, it’d be far simpler, cheaper and safer to speed limit vehicles to 80kph between dusk and dawn.

Teleost said:

>>>>The system will not swerve the car to avoid a kangaroo but will instead apply the brakes at full force to reduce the impact speed from, say, 110km/h to 70km/h.

As most roo collisions happen at night, it’d be far simpler, cheaper and safer to speed limit vehicles to 80kph between dusk and dawn.

anyone with any brains will slow down of a night on country roads because of it

over here as soon as nightfall and rain occurs people tend to speed up and of course wipe themselves out or someone else.

you don’t ride on the roads here if you have any sense , if the driver kills you they will go home and have a beer and laugh at the tv. as long as they are remorseful in front of the court (if it gets that far) they’ll be ok.

a cyclist being killed here is viewed in the same way as hitting a cardboard box.

I just got with the programme and realised it was a “fuck you” attitude and prevented people trying to kill me or inure me.

if I am walking near the road I am also very mindful of the driving skills of drivers

I know two people who have had their dogs killed on the lead thanks to someone coming off the road, mounting the pavement and being within a whisker of being killed.

people who keep having collisions need to be sent back to driver training

Teleost said:

>>>>The system will not swerve the car to avoid a kangaroo but will instead apply the brakes at full force to reduce the impact speed from, say, 110km/h to 70km/h.

As most roo collisions happen at night, it’d be far simpler, cheaper and safer to speed limit vehicles to 80kph between dusk and dawn.

Abother reason why I posted the link was the last paragraph discounting those shoo-roo things. People (including dear friends) swear by them, and use them as their magical guide and talisman for safe, roo-free driving between dusk and dawn.

There is a fair bit on roo and road behaviour – I posted some links in a previous SSSF incarnation about vigilance vs flight behaviour, tyre-road noise responses in roos, side fences effects, seasonal movements, roadside foraging, and the claims (which some studies discounted) that roos bounce into high beams / spotties like moths to a flame.

anyway – this is all interesting in the wider sphere of detecting cyclists, pedstrians, large critters etc… as a back up to assist drivers (not as the primary means for obstacle detection) – especially with inattentional blindness.

Abother =another

A system that made a warning sound so that you could chose to apply the brakes might be helpful. It would need to have a very wide field of view. The designers would need to do a little driving under Australian conditions to understand the problem. For example, the rule of thumb that ‘where there is one, there is another behind it’ and the ones that stand motionless until the last moment.

There might be a B double up your arse because it is going to overtake you. They bore on regardless because they are on a schedule and a roo strike doesn’t have the same impact on them as it does on a passenger car.

I do quite a bit of night driving at the moment, after midnight. I am finding that the roo problem on one of our most notorious strips, Sue’s Rd/Brockman Hwy, is not too bad at that time of night. I sometimes don’t see any roos. But owls are much more common. They have a habit of swooping out of nowhere right in front of the car. I usually have to brake more than once for owls in a typical 90 minute trip.

party_pants said:

Volvo probably don’t need to take it upon themselves to save the kangaroo from collisions with cars.

Actually, Kangaroos are pests – and Volvo should be fined and an injunction against them for interfering with their cull…

Mummy Kangaroos ‘decide’ when to have children based on how green the grass is (they can hold off a pregnancy for a decade) – the problem is that white man decided to irrigate the land and now the Roos pop ‘em out like Rabbits do.

The problem with kangaroos and other wildlife is not the ones you can see at a distance, but the ones hidden by vegetation on the edge of the road that suddenly run in front of you. It does not matter what speed you are travelling as they can do this at anytime and totally unexpectedly. Luck for you and luck for the animal is what usually counts in the end; a couple of weeks ago I had a young kangaroo jump out of the bush at 4 in the afternoon when visibility was excellent, luckily it jumped a little too late for me to run it over, but almost collided with the side of my vehicle. The same happened also in daylight hours with a Brush-wallaby a few weeks before that.

Going slower at night will give a better chance of stopping or avoiding a collision, but it is still very much luck and not driving skills that will save the day. Wild animals living near busy roads will have better road-sense than those in more remote regions, but these smarter animals will most likely have learnt road-sense by escaping near misses. A difficult situation with no obvious answer.

bourke said:

party_pants said:

Volvo probably don’t need to take it upon themselves to save the kangaroo from collisions with cars.

Actually, Kangaroos are pests – and Volvo should be fined and an injunction against them for interfering with their cull…

Mummy Kangaroos ‘decide’ when to have children based on how green the grass is (they can hold off a pregnancy for a decade) – the problem is that white man decided to irrigate the land and now the Roos pop ‘em out like Rabbits do.

There are seldom droughts that last for ten years, plus kangaroos can obtain most of their moisture requirements from succulent and semi-succulent vegetation. That is not to say they will readily drink when freshwater is available. Kangaroos also live in areas which due to the geology have no water holding properties, which makes these marsupials a great deal more adaptable than you seem to appreciate. Kangaroos do feed from road-verges as the feed there due to moisture run-off from the road is better than in the bush at that time of year, but they do not need it for survival.

PermeateFree said:

bourke said:

party_pants said:

Volvo probably don’t need to take it upon themselves to save the kangaroo from collisions with cars.

Actually, Kangaroos are pests – and Volvo should be fined and an injunction against them for interfering with their cull…

Mummy Kangaroos ‘decide’ when to have children based on how green the grass is (they can hold off a pregnancy for a decade) – the problem is that white man decided to irrigate the land and now the Roos pop ‘em out like Rabbits do.

There are seldom droughts that last for ten years, plus kangaroos can obtain most of their moisture requirements from succulent and semi-succulent vegetation. That is not to say they will readily drink when freshwater is available. Kangaroos also live in areas which due to the geology have no water holding properties, which makes these marsupials a great deal more adaptable than you seem to appreciate. Kangaroos do feed from road-verges as the feed there due to moisture run-off from the road is better than in the bush at that time of year, but they do not need it for survival.

Yes – my point was that they hold off (actually ‘pause’ is a better word) their pregnancy until plentiful times so they don’t have to compete for food – of course they can survive as adults themselves in drought conditions; the problem is that raising a joey places them in danger that can be avoided during droughts.

bourke said:

PermeateFree said:

bourke said:

Actually, Kangaroos are pests – and Volvo should be fined and an injunction against them for interfering with their cull…

Mummy Kangaroos ‘decide’ when to have children based on how green the grass is (they can hold off a pregnancy for a decade) – the problem is that white man decided to irrigate the land and now the Roos pop ‘em out like Rabbits do.

There are seldom droughts that last for ten years, plus kangaroos can obtain most of their moisture requirements from succulent and semi-succulent vegetation. That is not to say they will readily drink when freshwater is available. Kangaroos also live in areas which due to the geology have no water holding properties, which makes these marsupials a great deal more adaptable than you seem to appreciate. Kangaroos do feed from road-verges as the feed there due to moisture run-off from the road is better than in the bush at that time of year, but they do not need it for survival.

Yes – my point was that they hold off (actually ‘pause’ is a better word) their pregnancy until plentiful times so they don’t have to compete for food – of course they can survive as adults themselves in drought conditions; the problem is that raising a joey places them in danger that can be avoided during droughts.

(and obviously places the joey in danger as well)

bourke said:

PermeateFree said:

bourke said:

Actually, Kangaroos are pests – and Volvo should be fined and an injunction against them for interfering with their cull…

Mummy Kangaroos ‘decide’ when to have children based on how green the grass is (they can hold off a pregnancy for a decade) – the problem is that white man decided to irrigate the land and now the Roos pop ‘em out like Rabbits do.

There are seldom droughts that last for ten years, plus kangaroos can obtain most of their moisture requirements from succulent and semi-succulent vegetation. That is not to say they will readily drink when freshwater is available. Kangaroos also live in areas which due to the geology have no water holding properties, which makes these marsupials a great deal more adaptable than you seem to appreciate. Kangaroos do feed from road-verges as the feed there due to moisture run-off from the road is better than in the bush at that time of year, but they do not need it for survival.

Yes – my point was that they hold off (actually ‘pause’ is a better word) their pregnancy until plentiful times so they don’t have to compete for food – of course they can survive as adults themselves in drought conditions; the problem is that raising a joey places them in danger that can be avoided during droughts.

Marsupials are certainly well adapted to the variable Australian climate and certainly better equipped to handle such variation than introduced European placental mammals. It is often quoted that many native species would not survive had it not been for the water provided by graziers, although no mention is ever made of the waterholes that have been destroyed or polluted by their animals. We have a unique biota in Australia of which we should be proud, but instead many consider it as rubbish and should be eliminated. I often wonder if we as a people with our attitudes deserve this country, because our general ignorance of it despite being here for over 200 years is woeful.

>>Marsupials are certainly well adapted to the variable Australian climate and certainly better equipped to handle such variation than introduced European placental mammals.

eg cyclists

morrie said:

I do quite a bit of night driving at the moment, after midnight. I am finding that the roo problem on one of our most notorious strips, Sue’s Rd/Brockman Hwy, is not too bad at that time of night. I sometimes don’t see any roos. But owls are much more common. They have a habit of swooping out of nowhere right in front of the car. I usually have to brake more than once for owls in a typical 90 minute trip.

Yeah.

I live in serious (eastern grey) roo territory and my experience is that it’s dawn and dusk that are by far the most hazardous roo times.

PermeateFree said:

Marsupials are certainly well adapted to the variable Australian climate and certainly better equipped to handle such variation than introduced European placental mammals. It is often quoted that many native species would not survive had it not been for the water provided by graziers, although no mention is ever made of the waterholes that have been destroyed or polluted by their animals. We have a unique biota in Australia of which we should be proud, but instead many consider it as rubbish and should be eliminated. I often wonder if we as a people with our attitudes deserve this country, because our general ignorance of it despite being here for over 200 years is woeful.

Cane Toads, Rabbits, irrigation (and resultant salination due to rising water table), nuclear weapons testing… the poms certainly know how to make themselves popular ;-)

bourke said:

Cane Toads, Rabbits, irrigation (and resultant salination due to rising water table), nuclear weapons testing… the poms certainly know how to make themselves popular ;-)

You blame all environmental problems in this country on “the poms”?

bourke said:

PermeateFree said:

Marsupials are certainly well adapted to the variable Australian climate and certainly better equipped to handle such variation than introduced European placental mammals. It is often quoted that many native species would not survive had it not been for the water provided by graziers, although no mention is ever made of the waterholes that have been destroyed or polluted by their animals. We have a unique biota in Australia of which we should be proud, but instead many consider it as rubbish and should be eliminated. I often wonder if we as a people with our attitudes deserve this country, because our general ignorance of it despite being here for over 200 years is woeful.

Cane Toads, Rabbits, irrigation (and resultant salination due to rising water table), nuclear weapons testing… the poms certainly know how to make themselves popular ;-)

Which apparently has been handed down to following generations.

party_pants said:

Angus Prune said:

party_pants said:

Interesting technology. But what happens if your Volvo suddenly slams on the brakes and there’s a B-Double behind you not fitted with the same technology?

Presumably, the truck driver (because he’s a professional driver) is aware of safe stopping distances.

What if he isn’t?

if a truck driver isnt aware of safe stopping distances then that driver should not be driving

or any other driver for that matter

I think more effort should be put into defensive driving

how would an automated radar braking assisted system deal with this

this is video of a collision between an elk and two cars

animal lovers be warned this is a disturbing video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfwpQk7-218

accident avoidance systems need to be fast, a good system would take in cars behind as well

in that video, if such a system was installed, perhaps a touch of the brakes, and a slight move to the left, but avoiding a head on with cars in the opposite lane

perhaps car manufactures should work more on computer simulated accidents to figure out how to avoid on road objects while also avoiding other traffic around the vehicle

If animal avoidance is the reason to modify a vehicle, then sharp sounds that radiate in front of it to warm of the vehicles approach is probably the best thing. I drive an old 4WD that has a roo bar leading around to form side steps. These have had various knocks making one side loose which makes a rattling noise on gravel or uneven roads. Roos have better hearing than vision and hear if something usual is approaching, so most often move out of the way. Lights on the other hand blind the animal, confuse it and cause it to act erratically.

Doubt if Volvo would fancy my anti-roo device, but could use sound waves make a deterrent at a much cheaper coat.