Those three humble budgerigars were among 10 – the others sporting names such as Milkyway, Blackhole, Tian and Rama – that took part in a University of Queensland study into mid-air collision avoidance.

Using pairs of budgerigars in a tunnel, the UQ researchers sent them on a collision course, but, over more than 100 tests, a collision never happened.

And the simple reason birds never collided mid-air became patently clear over 102 flights – they always, always, veer right.

Professor Mandyam Srinivasan from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute said the findings had enormous potential for automated anti-crash systems on aircraft.

Professor Srinivasan said looking at the 150 million-year evolution of bird flight could have a huge impact on human flight, which was only a little more than a century old.

"Birds must have been under strong evolutionary pressure to establish basic rules and strategies to minimise the risk of collision in advance," he said.

"But no previous studies have ever examined what happens when two birds fly towards each other.

"Our modelling has shown that birds always veer right and sometimes they change their altitude as well, according to some pre-set preference.

"As air traffic becomes increasing busy, there is a pressing need for robust automatic systems for manned and unmanned aircraft, so there are real lessons to be learned from nature."

In the series of experiments Professor Srinivasan and his team found the birds would rarely fly at the same height.

"This raises the question of whether individual birds have a specific preference for flying higher or lower," Professor Srinivasan said.

"It might be that their position in the group hierarchy determines their flight height. This is a question for further research.

"While we can't say how birds solve the problem of switching to different altitudes, we can propose some simple strategies for autopilot systems and unmanned aerials vehicles to prevent head-on collisions."

The study, which was funded by Boeing Defence Australia and the Australian Research Council, used high-speed video cameras to study the budgerigars' flight behaviour.

"Both strategies (veering right and separated altitudes) suggest simple rules by which collisions can be avoided in head-on encounters by two agents, be they animals or machines," the study found.

"The findings are potentially applicable to the design of guidance algorithms for automated collision avoidance on aircraft."

The study was published in the PLOS One journal on Thursday morning.