Figures published by the German ADAC show, every 2 minutes an animal-vehicle crash occurs, due to deer and boars suddenly appearing on the road. Especially in the months of April through May and October through December, the risk of roadkill incidents is exceedingly high.
Statistics from all over the world clearly show, that the local form of deer/elk represent the highest number of reported animal-vehicle crashes. In addition, central Europe also has a vast number of incidents with wild boar.
In order to keep roadkill incidents low, the animals need to be identified as such by cars beforehand. There is a lot of pedestrian safety testing already, so why not use the same technology and use it for animal safety?
An attempt to a solution could be testing with our 4activeAN dummies. The animal targets 4activeAN are the outcome of a long-term research project and represent a variety of realistic animal targets (roe deer, white tail deer, moose, wild boar, etc.). Each target is extremely lightweight and consists of a soft structure to prevent damage on the VUT. Still the physical properties, like radar reflection, depict the real animals. Different options, like an additional synchronized articulation, or heated versions, for thermal cameras, are available. Combined with 4activeSB or the driverless robotic platform 4activeFB-small it is the best and most efficient ADAS testing solution.
