AnswerID: 186975 Submitted: Thursday, Aug 03, 2006 at 19:49
Member - Andrew W (SA)
replied:
Well first of all cameras have a field of view ... it doesn't matter that it is infra-red - it will always be able to "see" the FOV that it's chosen lens will have.
The lens will thus need to be trading off a wide field of view for reach - the ability to get sufficient detail 85+ metres down the road.
To get in 85 metres down the road with some of the roadside veg only needs say a 10 degree FOV (I'm guessing - I didn't calculate it) whereas to get in the roo that is say 10 meters in front of you and 10m to the left hopping across your path it would need a 90 degree FOV or more, and thus a wider lens which would mean that the IR subjects captured 85m down the road might be just specs making the noise (IR specs from other things) more than the signal (roos, cats, foxes et al)
I can't see it being of real value with the current limitations on technology, unless it was very expensive (expensive sensors, smart computing logic, expensive lens and AF system) - by expensive, I mean $2,000+ at reasonably low quantities.
So to answer your question: why couldn't a similar system be used to detect roos? No reason at all really. Of course it will detect other IR emitting things to scare the pants off you - bats, owls (why do they sit on roads at night?), sheep, cattle, people, cats, foxes, rabbits (yep - plenty on the
Eyre peninsular) etc.
Practically, the reason you don't see some of those roos, in my experience, is that they are coming out from behind bushes, they are sitting
on the road when you come around the corner, they hop up off from below the
embankment etc. It aint going to help in those cases, and may make matters worse by bringing a false sense of security.
When there are lots of roos, you can go down to 40 k's in my experience and still be surprised by their behaviour ... so the detector needs to be a roo mind reader too!
Can't see it happening any time soon.
Ciao for now
Andrew.
 | Andrew Weller |
Reply 8 of 9
FollowupID: 444126 Submitted:
Thursday, Aug 03, 2006 at 20:39
Dave198 posted:
Wholeheartedly agree Andrew. It's the ones that jump out from behind a bush that are the worry. I drive a lot at night in roo country. Some nights they are real skittish, others nights they just sit and watch you go past. Ya just don't know what they are going to do.
One night 100 roos in 40 klms, and that was just what we saw in the headlights.
I think the risk of having a prang while watching the video screen would be pretty high too.
The safest way to drive in roo country at night is not too fast, and don't swerve to miss the roo if you are going a bit quick. Many people have finished up in hospital out our way by trying to swerve to miss a roo. You don't normally try and turn a corner at 100Kph, but some people try that to miss a roo.
If you hit the roo, you have some damage unfortunately. If you swerve and finish up driving on your doorhandles, you have a lot more damage. And maybe finish up in hospital too.
Dave
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