Design and Development of an Intelligent Environmental Robot for Waste Collection Using Servo Motors and Computer Vision

Solid waste in the urban area is one of the most intractable environmental problems that impact on the urban landscape, the wellbeing of the urban inhabitants, ecological planar and sustainability in modern societies. The past methods of waste management that entirely relied on manual labour and were run on a fixed date could not cope with the active build-up of waste. Not just that picking waste by hand exposes the worker to hazardous environments but it is also costing the municipalities a big sum of money thus this research aims at developing and creating an intelligent and autonomous environmental robot based on precision servo motors. The robot will be developed to recognize the waste, collect and store it in the different open environments and whether as a single unit or as a connected smart waste management system. It employs the combinations of mechanical accuracy, strong electronics and smart computer algorithms to achieve the high operating efficiency. The mechanical configuration will consist of a mobile chassis, capable of movement with DC drive motors, a multi-joint servo-controlled robotic arm, having high precision manipulation capabilities and a servo-controlled gripper capable of receiving different shape waste in a variety of different sizes. Its electronic design includes an Arduino Mega development board to operate the bottom level movement and sensor unit and a Raspberry Pi development board to operate the top-level controlling unit and computer vision with a Pi Camera module. Ultrasonic sensors are used to ensure the reliability of detecting obstacles along with avoidance. The two layered architecture of this software is implemented using the low-level control system that receives the motor actions and processes the sensors and the high-level vision layer that handles the waste detection depending on the visual footage using OpenCV. The robot will be at liberty to move towards the location of the trash and collect and store it on board. The capture success of more than 90 % in the ordered outdoor optical surrounding, high detection accuracy in various sources of light, as well as 2 to 4 hours of battery life are the best features of solar power that would be enhanced in the scenario of using amalgamation of solar power. The modular architecture allows implementing smart city with assistance. This kind of system is focused on making sure that the cost of operations is minimized, cleaning operations are maximized and that better waste management oriented environmental sustainability is encouraged.