Design and Development of Smart Beach Debris Collection and Segregation System

Marine debris has become a global problem, concerning all marine ecosystems, and humans alike. It's known to cause severe damage to the marine and coastal habitats, since a part of it washes up along the shores and reefs, and the remaining is swept off the coast leading to the sinking and persisting of the debris in the form of sediments for years. This submerged marine garbage contains items such as microplastics, large plastic fragments, fishing strings/nets, organic waste, and a lot more. Accumulation of such debris causes damage to the ecosystem, damaging the livelihood of all effected aquatic species, and also the people around these waters, as the microplastics in such waters is ingested by the fish, eventually making its way up the food chain. The motivation for building this project arose from the need to address the adverse effects of introducing trash into our marine ecosystems around the globe, and its detrimental impact on the ecosystem and beaches. To overcome these issues, we introduce the beach cleaning robot, an innovation in artificial intelligence and robotics. This bot improves upon an existing idea Bebot, thriving to provide better results in a more cost effective and easy-to-use manner. By using mapping technology and sensor detection techniques, this approach aims to pick up the trash from our beaches and coasts before it is washed out by the tides, helping us to cut down the amount of marine debris that makes it into the oceans from these sources. The final product will be a machine capable of distinguishing various types of waste that it collects, and segregating it into metallic and not metallic, cleaning the beach it is deployed at autonomously and providing long-term sustainability against beach debris. We envision a world where deploying such machines will not only result in cleaner beaches but also preserve the marine life in the surrounding area, allowing future generations to experience the beauty we enjoy right now.