Heaven’s light is our guide

Rajshahi University of Engineering &Technology, Bangladesh

Department of Mechanical Engineering

A thesis report on
Design and Development of an Autonomous Robot for Municipal Waste
Collection

This report is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor
of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology,
Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Supervised by Submitted by

Dr. Md. Rokunuzzaman Md. Towhidur Rahman

Professor Roll No.: 1502076
Department of Mechanical Engineering Khalid Morshed
Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology Roll No.: 1502101

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 Heaven’s light is our guide

Rajshahi University of Engineering &Technology,

Bangladesh

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Certificate

This is to certify that the thesis entitle “Design and Development of an Autonomous Robot
for Municipal Waste Collection” has been carried out by Md. Towhidur Rahman, Roll:
1502076 and Khalid Morshed, Roll: 1502101 under my supervision in the Department of
Mechanical Engineering at Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology, Bangladesh

Signature of Supervisor Signature of students

.................................... ....................................
Dr. Md. Rokunuzzaman Md. Towhidur Rahman
Associate Professor Roll No: 1502076
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Rajshahi University of Engineering &
Technology ...................................
Khalid Morshed.
Roll No: 1502101

Countersigned

....................................
Dr. Mhia Md. Zaglul Shahadat
Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Rajshahi University of Engineering &
Technology

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 Acknowledgements

All the praises and the supreme thanks belong to Allah, “Lord of All the Worlds, Most
Beneficent and Ever-Merciful”.

The authors wish to express their sincerest appreciation and heartiest gratitude to their
supervisor, Dr. Md. Rokunuzzaman, for his valuable advice, guidance and assistance during
the completion of this thesis. Grateful thank to Dr. Mhia Md. Zaglul Shahadat, Head of the
Department of Mechanical Engineering for giving permission to use laboratory facilities for
the fabrication and testing of the project. The authors are also thankful to our respected
external sir, for his review and valuable suggestions, meaningful discussion as the external
member of thesis examination.

Grateful acknowledgements are extended to Dr. Md. Rafiqul Islam Sheikh, Vice Chancellor
of RUET, for providing financial support to successful completion of this thesis project.

The authors wish to thank all their honorable teachers, friends, senior brothers and sisters
for their encouragement and inspiration. The authors extend a special note of thanks to
parents for supporting through all of our academic endeavors’ overs the past four years and
constant prayers for advancement.

Authors
Md. Towhidur Rahman
Khalid Morshed

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 Abstract

This research deals with the design and development of an autonomous robot which detects
and collects any kind of wastes on the determined path by the robot. In the present era the
management of waste has become a major crisis because unwanted waste is being produced
at a huge rate every day. Besides, majority of this generation is so much focused on their
own life that they ignore this alarming situation of waste management. From our country
perspective, Bangladesh has a very poor waste management system which takes a lot of
labors and time because of poor urban planning, political dysfunction, corruption in the
management, whether the waste production rate is too high because of the high growth rate
of population and industrialization. So, to fight this situation we badly need a waste
clearance system which is well organized and easy to use in day-to-day life. So, we came up
with an idea of creating a robotic system which can detect waste and collect it at the same
time in an organized manner. Our proposed robot is equipped with cameras which detects
wastes through image processing, collects it with a mechanical hand and stores it. In the
process it is also able to avoid obstacles using ultrasonic sensors. Image processing is done
by Raspberry pi and pi-camera. And the mechanical hand mechanism and the moving
mechanism of the robot is controlled by Arduino. Arduino and Raspberry pi are
interconnected through serial data communication.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Title Page

Title Page i
Certificate ii
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract iv
Table of Contents v
List of Tables vi
List of Figures vii
List of Appendices viii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Statement of the problem 5
1.3 Objectives 5
1.4 Scope and Limitations 6
2 Literature Review 7
3 Methodology 11
3.1 System overview 11
3.2 Methods and tools used 12
3.2.1 Garbage Detection 12
3.2.2 Robot Development 16
3.3 Experimental Setup 19
3.3.1 Main components of Setup 19
3.3.2 Different sub systems 23
3.3.2.1 Sensing system 23
3.3.2.2 Working principle of Sensing System 24
3.3.2.3 Controlling System 25
3.3.2.4 Controlling System Design 26
3.3.2.5 Mechanical System 27
3.4 Algorithm and Flow chart 29
3.5 Mechanical System Design 30
3.6 Cost Estimation 37

4 Results and Discussion 38

4.1 Results 38
4.2 Discussion 39
5 Conclusions and Future Recommendations 40
5.1 Conclusions 40
5.2 Future recommendations 40
References 41
Appendices 44

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 LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Title Page

1 Specification of the System 18

2 Cost Estimation of the system 37

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No. Title Page

1 Conventional Garbage Management System in Bangladesh 1
2 Conventional Garbage Management System in Dhaka City 2
3 Unawareness about Waste Disposal 4
4 System Architecture of Garbage Collecting Robot 11
5 R-CNN Workflow 13
6 Selective Search 13
7 Feature Extraction 14
8 Prediction 14
9 Residual Learning: Building Block 15
10 Region of Interest 16
11 Methodology Used for Developing Robot 17
12 Experimental Setup for Garbage Collecting Robot 19
13 Servo sg90 20
14 TCRT 5000 21
15 Arduino Nano 21
16 Yellow Gear Motor & Wheel 22
17 L298 Motor Driver 22
18 HCSR04 Sensor 23
19 Pi- Camera 23
20 Sensing System 24
21 Ultrasonic Sensor Working 24
22 Control System 25
23 Control Circuit 26
24 Microcontroller Pin Configuration 27
25 Mechanical Hand 28
26 Mechanical Body 28
27 Flow Chart and Operating Algorithm 30
28 Mechanical Body of the System 31
29 Drawing of the Robot 31
30 Lower Base 32
31 Bucket 33
32 Upper Base 34
33 Mechanical Hand of the Robot 36
34 Garbage Detection 38
35 Picking and Collecting of the Garbage 39

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 LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix Title Page

A Arduino Program files 43

B Symbols and Abbreviations 48

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