Hesham Alsahafi and Majed Almaleky
As
a result of the accumulation of waste metallic in recent times, researchers are
working to find possible solutions to reduce environmental pollution caused by
these wastes dumps. Some of those solutions are related with robotics, such as
Zen Robotic Recycling, which has multiple sensors for accurate analysis. Based
on these analyses, the robot can make independent decisions to pick up objects
from the waste stream [1]. Zen Robotic Recycling can be used only in recycling
factories and some commercial establishments, but it has high-cost and it is
non-usable in different environments. We decided to design and implement our own
metallic waste collection robot. In this work, some factors have been considered
such as cost, size, flexibility, weight, and autonomy. The purpose of this work
is to detect metallic objects in a specific area and pick them up by using a
robot arm.There are different kinds of microcontrollers that can be used as a
platform. These include Arduino, LilyPad, SparkFun and Seeed Studio. Arduino
microcontroller on board can be programmed using Arduino programming language.
To meet the objective of this work, several sensors such as Ultrasonic
sensor, and IR sensor should be used. In order for a metallic object to be
picked up, the detector also plays a significant role. There is an IR distance
sensor mounted on top of Contraspion is used in this work. It has servomotors
that control the movement of robotic arm. DC motors are also used in this work.
The Arduino Motor Shield allows the microcontroller to drive the two-channel DC
motor. Speed control is accomplished through conventional PWM, which can be
obtained from Arduino PWM output pins.