Volvo Cars Turns to Mother Nature (the African Locust) for Safety Solutions (3:18)

Volvo Cars, in collaboration with England’s Newcastle University, is using scientific findings about the African Locust to improve road safety. Volvo’s aim is to be able to transpose the locust’s unique characteristics in swarm collision avoidance onto a computer chip and apply it in future car safety systems. The study found that visual input is instantly transmitted to the insect's wing nerve cells, seemingly bypassing the brain, thus avoiding a collision with other locusts in the swarm. Even though radar systems like Volvo’s City Safety already exist today, the application of the locust sensory-input routing algorithm would revolutionize safety technology. Available newsfeed includes a narrated video - A-roll - on Volvo’s locust research.