Cigarette butts pose a huge risk to the world's oceans and can be a nuisance if cleaned up by hand, especially in public spaces such as beaches. A group of Italian scientists have built a quadruped robot that can identify litter and pick up the smallest bits with its leg-mounted vacuum cleaners.
VERO, the quadruped vacuum-equipped robot, is a four-legged device designed to search for and clean up litter in a variety of terrains. VERO was designed and built by a team of researchers at the Italian Institute of technology's Legged Dynamic Systems laboratory in Genoa, according to ai-to-identify-and-remove-cigarette-butts%2F74602799007%2F” class=”link rapid-with-clickid etailiffa-link” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:USA Today;elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:USA TODAY;elmt:;cpos:1;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>.
The group published a paper in April on the development and effectiveness of VERO in the The research paper states that cigarette butts are a serious problem. Discarded butts release toxic chemicals and microplastics into the ocean as they decompose. They are also the “second most common undisposed waste worldwide, in terrain that is difficult for wheeled and tracked robots to reach.”
VERO is designed to pick up this common type of small trash. An operator sets a field target for the robot to walk around. It then slowly walks the entire length of the target while identifying trash with a special neural network and built-in cameras. The quadruped robot has a “convolutional neural network for trash detection” that can target trash and pick it up with one of the four-legged mounted vacuum cleaners, according to the company. .
Beach cleaning can also be a challenge because sand makes it difficult to transport wheeled trash bins or heavy containers across terrain. Researchers conducted tests in “six different outdoor scenarios” to demonstrate VERO’s ability to navigate difficult terrain. It can stabilize itself while collecting trash with an Intel RealSense depth camera mounted on its chin.
The robot did not manage to collect all the waste in the initial test, but it did collect 90 percent of the cigarette butts identified in the test. This means that the amount of waste ending up in the ocean is reduced by 90 percent.
There don't appear to be any plans to deploy VERO for now. Researchers say the VERO design could be programmed and designed to perform other tasks, such as spraying crops, looking for weaknesses in infrastructure and helping with construction projects.
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