Kangaroo crash test dummies ... Holden has tested its cars in kangaroo crash tests dummies for decades, but Volvo will go one giant leap further. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
Volvo introduces autonomous driving so you never have to park your car again. Courtesy: Volvo
SWEDISH car maker Volvo says it is a step closer to coming up with technology that can spot a kangaroo and slam on the brakes to avoid impact — and has already started testing in Australia.
The latest Volvo cars can already brake automatically to avoid rear-ending the vehicle in front, and can spot pedestrians and cyclists day or night, but it has now turned its attention to animals.
Volvo safety engineers say they are starting with big, slow moving animals first, such as cows and sheep, but they say trying to detect and then avoid a jumping kangaroo is "not impossible".
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Common site on Australia's roads ... A kangaroo warning road sign in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. Source: ThinkStock
"As we have discovered, kangaroos are really unpredictable and difficult to avoid, but we don't think (avoiding them) is impossible," said Volvo safety expert Martin Magnusson.
"Kangaroos are smaller than the other animals we are trying to detect and their behaviour is more erratic, but we are working on it very intensively."
Mr Magnusson said the technology that can avoid kangaroos and other animals is still a few years away, but he is confident of finding a solution.
"We are sure we have the technology to detect a kangaroo, either standing or on the move, the next thing we need to understand is what action to take with the car, when should it brake, and so on," he said at the launch of the new Volvo XC90 in Sweden overnight, which the company claims is the world's safest SUV.
There are about 20,000 collisions with kangaroos in Australia each year, according to insurance industry data.
"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 friends — dogs and cats — are not on the list of those to save. "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 is yet to create a kangaroo crash test dummy similar to the one used by Holden in the 1990s.
Road Kill ... Hitting a kangaroo in a vehicle cannot only be deadly for the animal. Source: News Limited
But Volvo says it hopes to return to Australia in the next year or so to test the system on real kangaroos, during development.
"Eventually, we will have to test it in an environment with real kangaroos," said Mr Magnusson.
The system will not swerve the car to avoid a kangaroo (which safety experts strongly advise against) it 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 to detect cars, cyclists and pedestrians. A camera in the windscreen works in parallel with the radar to detect which way the object is moving and 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 of a human, 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.
This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling
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