Ramudroid to Surajdroid ( v7) — the journey
Ramudroid is an autonomous robotic vehicle to pick up litter from roads
The key differentiators
- Meant to clean outdoors and rugged surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, narrow lanes, alleys etc which are tedious for manual cleaning
- No vacuum or suction rather it uses energy-efficient brush-based design
- Solar Energy Powered thus self-reliant and non-polluting
- Intelligently targets litter using computer vision trained models
Inspired by Bharat Swachata Abhiyaan and aimed at keeping the urban environment clean and help in garbage classification towards efficient recycling .
India’s struggle with garbage
Littering and illegal dumping
- Unsegregated waste is a bottleneck for efficient recycling
- Bad for the environment, leads to mosquito breeding, pests and rodents multiplying
- One visible piece of litter encourages more people to litter around the same place
Using technology advancements in robotics and computer vision to identify and pick up litter
Challenge 1 : Efficient Path tracing
Follow Leader Vehicle for initial GPS coordinates collection
Find and pin-point locations of maximum litter and apply surveillance
Inter robot communication to avoid duplication of effort to cover an area already covered
Maximum coverage of a Road
Avoid collision and running into dead ends
Challenge 2 : Determine What is garbage and what is not
- Robust computer vision and realtime object detection process
- Sensors to detect is a garbage is within navigable range
- Allow manual override in case of indecision
Challenge 3. Segregation at source
- Categories of Garbage
- Biodegradables ( Kitchen Waste )
- Dry (Plastic, Paper, Metal, Wood, etc.) ~= Litter ( target )
- Domestic Hazardous waste (diapers, napkins, mosquito repellants, cleaning agents etc.)
Ramudroid Iterations
Ramudorid v1
Ramudorid v2
- Web console
- REST APIs
Ramudorid v3
Addons:
- preprogrammed router traversal.
- speed alterations
- brush speed modes — fast , medium, slow
Ramudroid v4
Ramudorid v5
Ramudorid v6
Ramudorid v6.5
Feature update includes sensitivity to obstruction detection using ultrasonic sensors.
LED front lights for Rpi camera stream to work in night and dark conditions
Ramudorid v7
feature updates:
- New body design
- Addon solar Panels
- Hybrid solar powered
Ramudorid v7.5
Features Updates:
- Garbage Identification and Tracking
- Larger Bin to body ratio
- Autonomous, extended range
- Webrtc Streaming via MCU ( media centralised unit architecture )
