Research and development of Ro-boat: an autonomous river cleaning robot

Abstract

Ro-Boat is an autonomous river cleaning intelligent robot incorporating mechanical design and computer vision algorithm to achieve autonomous river cleaning and provide a sustainable environment. Ro-boat is designed in a modular fashion with design details such as mechanical structural design, hydrodynamic design and vibrational analysis. It is incorporated with a stable mechanical system with air and water propulsion, robotic arms and solar energy source and it is proceed to become autonomous by using computer vision. Both “HSV Color Space” and “SURF” are proposed to use for measurements in Kalman Filter resulting in extremely robust pollutant tracking. The system has been tested with successful results in the Yamuna River in New Delhi. We foresee that a system of Ro-boats working autonomously 24x7 can clean a major river in a city on about six months time, which is unmatched by alternative methods of river cleaning.