Rural Trash Collection

Project Overview

Of the many challenges facing our regions across the country today, the accumulation of roadside debris impacts us on many levels. Beyond the obvious degradation of the environment, this blight diminishes our regional and national pride, it poses negative impacts on our tourism economies, it drains a significant amount of our annual maintenance budgets and it creates critical safety hazards to not only motorist but to those who endeavor to collect it along sections of our highways and byways.

A means of automating the collection of litter allowing the monitor/operator to work remotely or at a minimum from the safety of a vehicle is long overdue.  Students within the Virginia Tech Interdisciplinary Senior Design Capstone have spent the past two years developing the basis of an automated trash collection system. Terry the Trash Collecting robot is 2nd gen platform with a mechanism to collect trash along the roadway.  Terry needs your help!  Now is the time for a Gen-3 automated litter collection system!  We need your help to equip Terry with the sensors necessary to perceive the landscape and locate litter (LIDAR, GPS, machine vision).  We also need you to help Terry learn to use this perception to autonomously complete his trash-collecting tasks (path planning, machine perception, sensor fusion, systems design)!

Objectives

  1.  Select and install sensors necessary to autonomous navigation and trash collection
  2. Identify and review algorithms to govern path planning, obstacle avoidance, safety, and trash collection
  3. Develop a proposal to enhance Terry’s autonomy

Major Tasks

The major tasks of the project are outlined below.  These are nominal and are likely to change somewhat throughout the course of the year.  These are meant to illustrate the general nature of the work that the position entails.

  1.  Review of hardware and software of Terry MKII
  2. Scope parameters of trash collection mission
  3. Survey sensor technologies for autonomic navigation and trash collection
  4. Select and install sensor payloads
  5. Design sensor fusion algorithms
  6. Design navigation algorithms
  7. Design safety system
  8. Develop test plans

We’re recruiting for Spring 2024!

Preferred Skills and Interests

  • machine vision
  • machine perception
  • robotics
  • environmental/green engineering
  • controls
  • coding
  • mechatronics
  • systems engineering and design

Apply here!