A.UTOMATIC. I.NDUSTRIAL R.ECYCLING O.RGANIZER
Recycling is widely accepted as an action that should be performed, yet it is not. We would theorize that this consequence is a result of human laziness: People do not acknowledge that the result of the action is worth the time and effort required to repeatedly perform such a tedious task. Our company has developed a product that solves this difficulty by automating the recycling process.
AIRO identifies objects by utilizing sensors. Based on the characteristics of the object, AIRO will actuate motors to organize the objects into separate containers that can be easily distributed for recycling.
Our company's preliminary prototype is only a proof of concept and has been designed to categorize an arbitrary cubicle object by two different attributes: mass and reflectivity. Combinations of these two attributes yield four different categories. The prototype is able to classify then organize the object into four different compartments.
The technology on this prototype will be upgraded so that the system can automatically organize “real” objects. In addition, the prototype is only a component of the complete system, which allows the user to simply dump a collection of trash into a single bin from which AIRO will proceed.
The concept of this design can be further expanded for a variety of other applications. First, the initial AIRO prototype can be scaled down for home recycling use. Another variation of the AIRO design can be used for factory assortment. The system could be designed to recognize and organize machined parts into different corresponding containers. The design is based on the idea of increased efficiency of tedious tasks through automation.
