PRE2019 3 Group20

Group members

Name	Student ID	Program
Erik Heijerman	1298968	Industrial Design
Wouter Meeuwis	1338390	Industrial Design
Kevin Pits	0896637	Software Science
Teun Schutten	1333607	Industrial Design

Problem statement and objectives

As summer approaches and it gets hotter in the Netherlands, yearly millions of people flock to the Dutch beaches to cool down, get a tan and escape the bustle of the city. this is not only a popular activity for locals, but also for millions of tourists who visit the Netherlands every year. The beach at Scheveningen, one of the most popular beaches in the Netherlands, already welcomes 17 million visitors annually.

This big source of tourism boosts the local economy, but also has its downsides. Because more often than not there are too few trash cans on the beaches, and people generally cannot be bothered to take their trash with them, beaches get littered. Lots of plastic packaging, glass bottles, aluminum cans and other waste ends up in the sand, most of which does not decompose. Unless it is picked up by someone else it will stay in the sand forever, damaging wildlife living on the Dutch beaches like seagulls, seals or wild horses. On top of this, due to tidal activity, the waste that is close to the shoreline can end up in the water, which is harmful for the sea life.

There have been some local initiatives to clean up litter on the beaches. An example of this is a yearly 95 day clean up action at the beach of Scheveningen, that this year resulted in 3100 kilos of collected trash. However, the entire problem cannot be solved by these local initiatives only. Having people picking up litter is very time consuming, inefficient and it requires a lot people to properly do it. On top of this, because of bad labor circumstances it almost always has to be done by volunteers.

In this project, we want to develop a robot which is able to autonomously collect litter on beaches in an efficient, strategic and sustainable way. The robot is first and foremost aimed to be more efficient than its human counterparts by using innovative techniques to pick up litter and by working more continuously. Another objective is to let the robot operate in a strategic and rational way, such that it for instance avoids cleaning the same space twice in a short time period. Thirdly, the robot has to function in a sustainable way by using renewable energy.

Users

Our users are the RVB and the city councils of municipalities which border a coast.

In the Netherlands, the beach from the sea to the dune foot is property of the Rijksvastgoedbedrijf (RVB). The Rijksvastgoedbedrijf is the real estate organization of the Dutch government. The RVB is responsible for the management and maintenance of real estate in use by the Dutch state. This means that for the Dutch beaches, the Rijksvastgoedbedrijf together with the city council of the city where the beach is located are responsible for maintaining and taking care of these beaches. Because they are both responsible for this task, they will also be the users of the robot.

In this project we lay a more specific focus on the beach of Scheveningen, as this is a familiar environment, has great tourism and are easily approachable. The people that are most responsible for this beach are boulevardmanagers Eite Levinga and Peggy ten Hoopen. We urge to contact them as they can provide us with more experience and expertise about the most common kind of litter and about their current techniques for litter-removal.

The goals of the users (the city councils) are as followed:

1. The users aim to preserve the environment by minimizing the amount of litter and trash on the beaches as well as avoiding or decreasing sea pollution. Protecting plants and wildlife on land as well as sealife plays a big role in this motivation.
2. The users aim to preserve cleaner beaches to satisfy tourists and local visitors, which will positively influence the appeal of the area. Preserving this reputation is an important factor to boost the local economy.

In order to achieve these goals, the robot is required to have certain abilities and features.

The robot will replace the job of a group of humans. To make this transition into robot labor profitable for the users, the job needs to be done more efficiently in terms of time and it has to be financially beneficial in the long run. In order to achieve this, the robot needs to work autonomously. If a lot of time is required of employees to use of the robot, it still requires some human labor with a salary, and therefore it is also limited to the skill and attention of the operator, making it more expensive and inconvenient. If the robot requires a lot of maintenance (both routine/preventative and emergency), it will be quite expensive and less reliable. Therefore, the robot needs to be low maintenance, with easy routine maintenance to prevent a total breakdown with costly repairs and downtime.

As beaches can be kilometers long, cleaning them will take a fair amount of time. To make this as efficient as possible, the robot is required to have a big long-lasting battery. To avoid an inefficient Roomba-like concept, the robot is required to have a detection system which can identify litter from the sand. The robot will have to store the litter as it moves on. To support the efficiency, the size of this storage is desired to be big. As the robot is required to move around on uncertain terrain like sand, meaning no flat surface, the robot has to be equipped with a mobility system that is able to overcome obstacles and rough terrain.

Stakeholders

In addition to the users of the robot, there are various other stakeholders who are of great importance. One of these stakeholders are the visitors of the beaches. After all, these visitors benefit from a clean, litter free beach on their day off.

The littering by the visitors of the beaches has a major negative effect on wildlife on land as well as in the sea. The natural habitat of the wildlife is seriously disturbed by the litter. In addition, many animals die from consuming plastic which is left behind on beaches. The robot is of great importance for maintaining a healthy natural habitat for the wildlife. This is the reason that wildlife on land and in the sea is seen as an important stakeholder.

RPC's

Requirements (must be)

• The robot should be able to pick up soft plastics (shopping bags, packaging etc.) that weigh less than 50g.
• The dimensions of the plastics should be smaller than the middle part of the robot, which is 30cm.
• The effective width of the robot should be 100 cm.
• 75% of the sand that is received should be dropped.
• The robot should be able to pick up at least 90% of the plastics that it encounters.
• The grabbing system should be sand and waterproof.

Preferences (should be)

• The robot receives the least amount of sand.
• The robot cleans the beach as fast as possible.
• The robot is feeded by renewable energy.
• The robot knows when its litter saver is full.
• The robot is waterproof
• The robot works autonomous

Constraints (has to)

• (Price)
• (Weight)
• ?

The Concept

The Concept

A concept had to be devised as a solution to the problem statement. In the problem statement was stated that plastic pieces of wrappings, bags, etc. fall apart into microplastics which is crucial for the well-being of the environment. To prevent this, we will develop an innovative and efficient litter-pick-up-system of an autonomous beach-cleaning-robot. This beach-cleaning robot must therefore be able to clear plastic pieces of different sizes from the beach.

A number of requirements have been drawn up. These requirements must also be taken into account. The beach-cleaning-robot should be able to pick up lightweight soft plastics (< 50 g) that are smaller than the middle part of the robot. In addition, the range of the robot to pick up plastics should be 100 cm. 75% Of the sand that is received should be dropped. The robot should be able to pick up at least 90% of the plastics that it encounters. The last requirement is that the grabbing system should be sand proof.

Before a concrete concept could be devised as a solution to the problem statement, a 'State of the Art' was drawn up and studied. This discusses the things that already exist at the moment and which therefore do not require any attention. The following topics are reflected in the "State of the Art": Mobility, Navigation, Litter Detection and Grabbing System. In addition to these topics, existing beach-cleaning robots were also examined. The topic of 'Grabbing System' and the existing beach-cleaning-robots is important for devising a concept as a solution to the problem statement.

While studying the "State of the Art" of the topic "Grabbing System" we noticed several things. Many Grabbing Systems of existing robots are similar. For example, there are many robots that use buckets. The downside of these buckets is that they also pick up shells and stones from the beach. This is of course not the intention when cleaning the beaches. There are also several existing robots that use a system with rotating hooks. These hooks pick up the litter from the beaches, without taking stones and shells with it. It seemed to us that this system worked better than buckets.

The conceived concept, which will solve the problem statement, is inspired by an existing beach cleaning robot, called RF Controlled Beach Cleaner Robotic Vehicle, that uses the system with the rotating hooks [1]. What struck us about this existing beach cleaner is that it has a narrow litter range. In addition, this beach cleaner did not pick up enough litter that it encountered. To solve these adverse factors, we were inspired by a different type of cleaner, namely a street sweeper machine for trash collecting [2]. This street cleaner has two brushes on the front of the machine. These brushes ensure that the machine has a wider litter range. The brushes are placed on the two sides of the front of the machine and rotate towards the center of the machine.

Based on the RPCs and the State of the Art, a concept has been devised as a solution to the problem statement. This concept consists of three parts in width. The first and third parts are the left and right sides of the robot, respectively, and consist of two round, rotating hook systems. These two systems rotate toward the center of the robot. This ensures that all trash that approaches the side of the robot is brought to the center. The second part is the center of the robot. This part consists of a rotating hook system in the form of a conveyor belt. This conveyor belt raises all the plastic garbage. At the top of the conveyor belt, the plastic garbage falls into a bin. The bottom of this container consists of a sieve, so that the sand that has come along comes back on the beach. The robot runs on tracks. This makes it easier for the robot to drive over small holes and small bumps. The robot is 100 cm wide and therefore also has a range of 100 cm. This range is lot wider than the range of the RF Controlled Beach Cleaner Robotic Vehicle.

A sketch of the concept:

The concept is intended to clean up lightweight soft plastics (<50 g) that are smaller than the middle part of the robot. When an object is too heavy or too big to be picked up, the robot will notice it. The robot has sensors that can measure whether an object is too big or too heavy to be cleaned up. When this is the case, the robot will reverse and the rotary hook systems will turn the other way. When the object, which was too big or too heavy, is no longer visible from the sensors, the robot will turn 90 degrees and continue its cleaning journey.

[1] n.d., "RF Controlled Beach Cleaner Robotic Vehicle," Nevon Projects , [Online]. Available: http://nevonprojects.com/rf-controlled-beach-cleaner-robotic-vehicle/.

[2] Zoni, S. (2020). Retrieved 12 March 2020, from https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b2/ba/3f/b7a7790a0497ad/US4754521.pdf

Approach, milestones and deliverables

Approach

1. Research into the State of the art
2. Defining the problem statement
3. Formulating requirements
4. Ideation
5. Synthesisation
6. Simulation
7. Prototyping
8. Testing
9. Evaluation
10. Integration of findings in final design

Milestones

• Summary of the State of the art, a defined problem statement and a list of requirements.
• Concrete concept out of the ideation and synthesisation. 1st generation design
• Simulation of the concept.
• Final concept. 2nd generation design
• Prototype.
• Test and evaluation results.
• Final design. 3rd generation design

Deliverables

• Final design
• Prototype
• Complete wiki page
• Final presentation

Timekeeping

Week 1

Name	Total hours	Breakdown
Erik Heijerman	7	Group meetings: 5, Searching papers: 1, Writing & Reviewing: 1
Wouter Meeuwis	8.5	Group meetings: 5, Searching papers: 2, Writing the User and stakeholder part: 1.5
Kevin Pits	8	Group meetings: 5, Copyediting and wiki: 3
Teun Schutten	10	Group meetings: 5, Writing Problem statement and objectives: 2, Reviewing and correcting: 1, Searching papers: 2