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TECH: Self-Driving Car Technology Foiled By Kangaroos

Kangaroo and car - pixabay

Driverless car makers are discovering a unique problem as they begin to test the vehicles in Australia.

It turns out the unusual way that kangaroos move completely 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,” Volvo Australia’s technical manager David Pickett said.

Because the cars use the ground as a reference point, they become confused by a hopping kangaroo, unable to determine how far away it is.

But Mr Pickett said it was even more complicated than that.

“First we have to start identifying the roo,” he said.

“We identify what a human looks like by how a human walks, because it’s not only the one type of human — you’ve got short people, tall people, people wearing coats. The same applies to a roo.

By Jake Evans – Full Story at ABC.net.au

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