GUJARAT, India: Scientists have developed an efficient, low-cost obstacle detection and alert system that can help cars avoid colliding with cows or other animals on the road in real time.
Researchers from Gujarat Technological University have built a system that uses a dashboard camera and an algorithm that can determine whether an object near the vehicle is an on-road cow and whether or not its movements represent a risk to the vehicle.
A timely audio or visual indicator can then be triggered to nudge the driver to apply the brakes whether or not they have seen an animal.
“In our current work, we have proposed and designed a system based on histogram research including oriented gradients and boosted cascade classifiers for automatic cow detection,” they said.
THE PROPOSAL
The method was tested on various video clips involving cow movements in various scenarios.
“The proposed system has achieved an overall efficiency of 80 per cent in terms of cow detection,” researchers said.
On busy, imperfect roads, a cow represents a significant obstacle that must also be taken into account.
Safety, security and comfort are generally considered important to vehicle design with performance, fuel economy and other factors also considered in terms of how marketable a given vehicle will be.
