A device called a 'RooBadge' is being touted as technology that could potentially prevent hundreds of thousands collisions with kangaroos on country roads.
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Over the course of three years, the RooBadge has been developed by Volkswagen Australia, the DDB Group, the University of Melbourne and WIRES.
The badge is designed to emit an audio deterrent to kangaroos as a vehicle approaches. A mixture of natural and artificial sounds is mixed in real time and projected in a high frequency audio signal.
Connecting to an in-car app, the badge calibrates a vehicle's GPS coordinates with kangaroo distribution data.
After extensive trials, permission has been obtained from the University of Melbourne Office of Research Ethics and Integrity to move into stage four trials, involving kangaroos in the wild.
While so-called deterrent devices have existed for some time, none have been scientifically developed or proven.
"[RooBadge does] something no kangaroo deterrent has been able to do before," Melbourne University Associate Professor Graeme Coulson said.
"It's difficult to produce a single sound that will deter all kangaroos, because the species are different to each other. Using advancement in car technology we can change the sound deterrent by GPS location.
"We have worked on sounds that will be meaningful to Eastern Grey Kangaroos, things like dingo calls, alarm calls made by birds and the alarm thumps that kangaroos make to warn each other. We will then be able to tweak the sound for other species."
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles director Ryan Davies said the company was investing in the technology because it was "the right thing to do".
"A collision with a roo can be devastating," he said.
"It is not easily forgotten once seen, and certainly not if experienced.
"Then there's the possibility of a front-on collision with an approaching vehicle at country road speeds when one driver is trying to avoid striking a kangaroo. These are even more likely to have a fatal human outcome."
The University of Melbourne's Dr Helen Bender, whose research has been used extensively in this project, said there was a likelihood the technology would be transferrable to deer.
"Roadkill is a problem all around the world," she said.
"What's interesting about deer relative to kangaroos is that they're very similar in body size, head size, and ear size.
"What we know from science is that the ear shape in the head shape tells us that they probably have similar hearing ranges. So, whatever we learn has transferability to the deer as well."
