Kangaroos confusing autonomous vehicles

Volvo Australia is discovering a unique problem as it begins to test autonomous vehicles in Australia – it seems the way kangaroos move is confusing the car’s detection system, ABC Australia reports.
July 6, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

609 Volvo Australia is discovering a unique problem as it begins to test autonomous vehicles in Australia – it seems the way kangaroos move is confusing the car’s detection system, ABC Australia reports.

Volvo’s large animal detection software can recognise animals such as moose, but the company’s researchers are still solving the kangaroo problem. The cars detect animals by using the ground as a reference point in order to determine an object’s distance. When exposed to a kangaroo’s hopping, though, they become ‘confused’.

Volvo Australia's technical manager David Pickett told ABC that the animal’s hopping throws off the car’s animal detection system. "We've noticed with the kangaroo being in mid-flight ... when it's in the air it actually looks like it's further away, then it lands and it looks closer," Pickett said.

Australia's National Roads and Motorists' Association says 80 per cent of animal collisions in the country involve kangaroos.

In addition to difficulties detecting kangaroos, the cars will need to be adjusted for a few other Australian quirks before they are rolled out. Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative executive director Rita Excell said Australia's many unsealed roads, its unmarked highways, and the huge road trains on regional highways were among the challenges.

According to managing director of Volvo Australia, Kevin McCann, the discovery is part of the development and testing of driverless technology and wouldn’t pose problems by the time Volvo’s driverless cars would be available in 2020.

Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • August 29, 2013
    Radar and laser detectors save wild animals, protect drivers
    The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) in Ontario, Canada, where collisions with wild animals cost the province more than US$95 million annually, has installed wildlife sensor and alert systems to reduce the number of animal-vehicle collisions on its highways. The MTO has installed two types of systems – one uses laser tripwires to detect animals and the other uses radar, an alternative that was found to address some of the challenges posed by laser systems. Neither system has yet been determined to be
    Read More
  • May 13, 2015
    Autonomous car accidents revealed in California
    Associated Press (AP) recently reported that three of Google's self-driving cars have been involved in accidents since September, when California allowed them to begin using public roads. The parts supplier Delphi Automotive had one accident, which an accident report the company provided to AP showed was not its fault. Delphi said at the time the car was being driven by the person the DMV requires behind the wheel during testing. US consumer rights advocate Consumer Watchdog has now called on Google
    Read More
  • April 4, 2016
    More than half of UK’s new cars sold with autonomous safety tech
    Self driving cars may seem years away, but more than 1.5 million UK motorists a year now leave showrooms in cars featuring self-activating safety systems, according to analysis revealed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

    Data from SMMT and JATO Dynamics shows that more than half of new cars registered in 2015 were fitted with safety-enhancing collision warning systems, with other technologies such as adaptive cruise control, autonomous emergency braking and blind spot monitoring also surging in popularity.
    Read More
  • October 22, 2013
    Too safe for safety’s sake
    In-vehicle systems are making huge advances in vehicle safety with the introduction of ABS, collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control, lane departure alert and blind spot warning… the list goes on. But at the same time accidents are still happening and arguably getting bigger. A look at a list of multi-vehicle (30 - 300) accidents across Europe, North and South America and parts of the Middle East shows that the trend is increasing with 2013 already having witnessed seven such incidents – three of which
    Read More

Highlighted Content