Because of the high deer population, driving some D.C.-area roads at night can be fraught. A pair of seniors at Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, have been hard at work on a device that could steer deer away from cars.
Anmol Karan and Shaurya Jain are in the process of developing a prototype incorporating artificial intelligence, ultrasonic pulses, and animal or human sounds. The two have received a lot of support, including a $15,000 grant from the Animal Welfare Institute as a part of the Christine Stevens Wildlife Award.
“Honestly, we’re very honored to receive this award,” Jain told WTOP. “Not everyone would trust a bunch of high schoolers with this kind of money.”
The devices Karan and Jain are developing would recognize vehicles and deer through computer vision and then send out pulses and bio-sound to turn the deer away.
Jain, from Aldie, said he was inspired by his religion, Jainism, which holds all living creatures sacred. Karan, who is from Ashburn, said he was motivated by his uncle, who is recovering from a nighttime collision with a deer while driving in Loudoun County.
“That caused a pretty-pretty bad collision, which caused him to get an injury,” Karan explained. “Seeing him caused me to just feel that there probably is some type of method that we can keep on these roads in order to prevent such accidents from happening.”
Karan’s uncle is now recovering.
The two said they also received letters of support for their grant application from their high school’s Web Lab director, as well as from the Virginia Transportation Research Council.
The two are now collecting data on deer vehicle collisions in Northern Virginia and will then test their roadside device prototypes in hot spots.