Real-time multi-class object recognition for municipal waste collection

The use of garbage trucks with “robot arms” for municipal waste collection is becoming more and more common in Ontario and across North America. However, these “robots” have very little capability. In our collaboration with Waterloo Controls, we are working to automate the process of garbage collection. Rather than requiring the operator to acquire the truck, then steer the robot arm to pick up the bin, we are working to add automatic capability. With our proposed solution, the system will automatically find the bin, automatically determine if it is safe to collect it (ie: there are no people or pets in the way), then automatically pick up the bin and dump it, with no more effort on the driver’s part than the push of a button. TO BE CONT”D

Faculty Supervisor:

Kenneth McIsaac

Student:

Partner:

Waterloo Controls Inc;Western University

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services

University:

Western University

Program: