AWD 3302: Project Files

Title: Annotated Bibliography for Automated Trash Sorting

Author: Oliver Scott

Date:

World War II saw Americans willfully ration clothes and gasoline, plant war gardens, and participate in scrap metal drives to manufacture bullets. The effort on the home front came as an overlooked victory, proving that the nation could survive — thrive even — without superfluous luxuries when organized under a common cause. Although U.S. government’s propaganda based success to conserve resources at home was a fantastic accomplishment, it came with a disconcerting lesson. Without an enemy, Americans lost their capacity to skirt comforts for conservational purposes. As it happens, the overwhelming amount of research indicates that there still is an enemy — although it does not present itself in a swastika emblazoned SS jacket, but with climbing temperatures and rising sea levels — however a complicated mesh of conflicting interests seems to be hindering Americans from readopting the thrifty traits of their grandparents. The consequence is a culture that continues to increase its consumption, ignoring the all but certain consequences. As the speed at which items are deemed obsolete increases, driving the economy further toward a reliance on disposable commodities, the rate at which our landfills reach max capacity increases in step, despite our technological potential to accomplish the opposite. Further encouragement for America to deal more effectively with its waste addiction should come from an awareness of what is transpiring beyond its own shores. Population growth compounded with the entrance of developing countries in consumer markets guarantees that demand for first world commodities is to skyrocket. The amount of waste produced by such an increase in demand, spells uncertain questions for how factories and our environment will respond to this change. Luckily, a solution to our apathy^[i.n.] might be found in new technologies. By levering technology to sort our waste for us, both in our home and in public, the current flow of thousands of tons of metals, rare earth and plastics could be directed out of our landfills rather than into them. This is crucial not only in ensuring that less waste reaches our landfills, but also in ensuring that what does reach our landfills does so safely.^[i.n.]

Unni Eikeseth Chris Veløy http://sciencenordic.com/machines-are-better-people-sorting-household-trash Machines are better than people at sorting household trash Sciencenordic.com. N.p., 03 April 2013. Web. 12 July 2016.

Science Nordic is an independent news site, focused on the coverage of scientific developments in Nordic countries. As such, their coverage of automated waste assortment in Norway fits nicely into the domain of the website. A broad overview is given of new waste sorting technology at a waste disposal plant on the outskirts of Oslo. In addition to providing coverage of the capabilities of the plant (in sorting between plastic and food waste), the article also refers back to failures in similar technology that had been attempted in the 1980s. With improvements in spectrography, infra-red sensors and hardware it seems the Oslo plant has found its solution. Although only an industrial level of trash separation is discussed in this article, there might be replicable methods for the residential setting as well. There is little evidence to suggest that sorting technology has developed much beyond what is addressed in the article, making the technology discussed still of pinnacle importance. Communities scouting to find functional technologies for their waste processing could find inspiration from the Oslo plant discussed.^[i.n.]

Mahmudul Hasan Russel Mehdi Hasan Chowdhury Md. Shekh Naim Uddin Ashif Newaz Md. Mehdi Masud Talukder Development of Automatic Smart Waste Sorter Machine

The paper's authors are a group of engineers based out of Bangladesh's Chittagong University and the University of Rajshashi. The authors present an in-depth technical report on how they sought to address the automated sorting of recyclable goods. The paper is broken into eight sections. The authors open with a broad overview of the world's waste problem, followed by discussion of potential resources that could be harvested from this waste. They then delve into the fine level details of their sorting system before resurfacing in the last three sections to critique their project. The technical solution -- detailed in sections three to five -- discusses a replicable system of OP Amps, IR, LDR, and other components accompanied by flowcharts and explanations. Although the project in question doesn't address the issue of waste storage through a particularly novel approach, it is a logical one, and is fit for the task at hand. The issues with grammar in the paper are far outweighed by the technically challenging solution to a serious problem that is put on display.^[i.n.] Engineers looking for a highly detailed report on creating a control flow to develop sensor based systems can gain insight from this paper.^[i.n.]

Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan http://gizmodo.com/this-trash-sorting-robot-could-revolutionize-recycling-511989613 This Trash-Sorting Robot Could Revolutionize Recycling Gizmodo.com. 06 June 2013. Web. 12 July 2016.

Campbell-Dollaghan, a popular Gizmodo contributor, details an innovative approach to waste sorting specifically outfitted for use on construction sites created by ZenRobotics. The article opens by making the staggering point that the construction center is responsible for a third of all waste created. By reintroducing the materials from active demolition cites into future projects, this number could be successfully and profitably lessened. Of particular interest in the article is the approach taken by ZenRobotics. Rather than using the more conventional servos to merely push or drop waste into different bins, the system relies upon a mobile arm to grab waste from a conveyor belt and sort it accordingly. This approach provides a novel means of addressing the issue of waste sorting. What the source seems to lack is critical insight into the more nuanced potential of the system in question. As a result, it comes across more as a public service announcement for social media than as a serious intellectual investment.^[i.n.] Engineers looking to think outside the box can certainly find inspiration from within the lines of this text, however if they seek more in-depth knowledge they should visit the ZenRobot's website.^[i.n.]

H.G. Barrow J.M. Tenenbaum R.C. Bolles H.C. Wolf Parametric Correspondence and Chamfer Matching: Two New Techniques for Image Matching

The authors in question are all published and highly referenced members of the artificial intelligence community. In this instance, they use their knowledge of the field to discuss two areas of computer vision. By combining parametric correspondence and chamfer matching, the researchers demonstrated a means by which a camera can automatically reorientate itself to a predetermined setting. The paper addresses parametric correspondence as being the ability to distinguish the offset of an image by referencing small predetermined landmarks. These landmarks are identified through the use of chamfer matching. Chamfer matching was used to identify these landmarks due to its fast computation speed and resistance to lighting disturbances. Although the methods discussed provide useful object recognition results in environments with variable parameters, most trash sorting can likely be done in a contained environment. The credentials of the authors speak for themselves, as they make a highly complex topic both informational and accessible. This paper serves as a strong display of how engineers might think about object recognition in a slightly unorthodox manner.

Duncan Furness SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PRECISELY POSITIONING A ROBOTIC TOOL

Although the patent in question was published in 1994, it maintains relevance through a large number of citations referring to it due to its novel methods of handling vision parallax. The patent details a robot arm and camera setup, whereby a camera positioned at an angle to the camera is used to guide a fixed robot arm to a destination. By breaking from the norm, and placing the camera to the side of the arm, rather than on the arm itself, the inventor was able to address parallax errors in order to operate more accurately in three dimensions. Using this technology could provide for more precise motor movements if a robot arm were used to sort the trash. Although most readers would find following the terms and mathematics behind this patent to be rightfully confusing, such a proven technology is rarely done simply. The problem addressed in the patent provides a useful solution for skilled engineers operating in controlled environments.