Team Included Students from 3 Universities : VIDEO: Drone Guided Robotic Bin Collection from Volvo Project
A robot that is guided by an autonomous drone and automatically collects and empties waste and recycling bins has been developed by students from three universities working in collaboration with the Volvo Group and the waste firm Renova.
Volvo explained that the system uses a drone on the roof of the refuse truck which scans the area and helps the robot to find the bins.
To collect empty the bins and collect the waste, the driver of the refuse truck presses a button which brings the collection robot to life. Simultaneously the drone lifts off from the roof of the truck.
According to Volvo, flying through alleyways the drone quickly finds the location of the refuse bins and communicates their positions to the robot. This is followed by automatic waste collection and emptying by the robot.
In the cab, the driver is able to monitor the exact location of the robot and the emptying process.
Dubbed the ROAR project (Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling), it is a collaboration between the Volvo Group, Chalmers University of Technology, Mälardalen University, Penn State University in the United States, and Renova.
The objective was said to be to demonstrate how smart machines will soon be able to communicate with each other to facilitate everyday life in a large number of areas.
“We predict a future with more automation,” asserted Per-Lage Götvall, project manager for robot development in the Volvo Group. “This project is intended to stimulate our imagination, to test new concepts that may shape transport solutions of the future.”
Volvo explained that a prerequisite for the robot’s work is that it already knows the neighborhood in the form of a map of both the maneuverable area and likely bin locations.
The robot then uses a number of different sensors to keep itself positioned within this map, enabling it to automatically perform its tasks. The sensors include GPS, LiDAR (a system similar to radar but using infrared light instead of radio waves), cameras, and IMU data, which uses accelerometers and gyroscope for navigation as well as odometry, where motion sensors measure the position changes over time.
Safety first
“For us at the Volvo Group, the safety aspect forms the basis of everything we do,” added Götvall. “Accordingly, many of the robot’s sensors are also used to ensure safety”.
One example cited was an emergency button, which immediately stops the robot if, for example, a child or a dog runs out in front of it. Another example is a camera on the truck that detects if someone comes too close while the bins are being emptied. If this occurs, the process automatically stops.
The students who worked on the project are all from universities included in the Volvo Group’s Academic Partner Program, a network of 12 universities with long-term research and recruitment collaboration with the Volvo Group.
It took students and researchers from the three participating universities only four months to design and build the prototype robot that automatically collects and empties the refuse bins.
Mälardalen University was responsible for designing the robot itself and Chalmers University of Technology developed the task-management system for the robot and the drone.
Penn State University developed a web based 3D interface that allows the driver in the cab to have an overview of all the systems, or to even control the robot’s motion directly.
A video of the robot in action can be viewed below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNIV6Dcj29E]
Read More
More on the ROAR project on P46 of the January/February issue of Waste Management World.
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