How AI could help drivers avoid collisions with deer

DENVER: US high school students have developed a system for preventing collisions between vehicles and wild animals, particularly deer.

It's an AI-powered on-board device comprising a camera and an artificial intelligence model capable of detecting the presence of deer live from the captured footage.

The concept, dubbed “Project Deer,” was developed by four Colorado high school students to reduce the risk of collisions between vehicles and wild deer.

The system combines a camera with an AI model specially trained to recognize deer. When an animal is identified, a dedicated light flashes on inside the car, warning the driver of an imminent risk of collision.

Colorado is one of the US states with the highest number of collisions with wild animals, mainly deer (nearly 4,000 per year). And accidents of this kind are often just as dangerous for the animals as they are for motorists and their passengers.

Four students from STEM School Highlands Ranch worked on a device capable of detecting the presence of a deer on the road in real time and warning motorists of their presence.

The concept has already won the state's “Samsung Solve for Tomorrow” award, along with a US$12,000 prize (RM51,468) to help finance a working prototype of the device. As a result, the four young women behind the project will soon be able to compete in the national competition for this award.

The next step is to test the solution in real-life conditions.

A camera will be mounted on the windshield of a car, and a small computer system dedicated to image analysis will be installed on the dashboard.

The students also intend to test the system in their own parents' cars. They say that their system should be able to operate at speeds of up to 60mph (just under 100kph). In the future, they hope to be able to test it on a multitude of vehicle types, including trucks.

All this comes at a time when automakers are working hand-in-hand with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to make it compulsory for all new vehicles to be fitted with a pedestrian (and therefore animal) detector by 2029, which would trigger an automatic emergency braking system.