Prototype System for Autonomous Detection and Extraction of Floating Pollution from Aquatic Environments

This research aims to develop an autonomous system for pollution acquisition and extraction within waterways. Currently, there are approximately 270,000 tons of pollution within the world’s oceans, with 80% originating from inland waterways. The environmental effects of this include marine mammals, fish, sea birds, and even coral. As the amount of pollution continues to increase, the need for a solution has never been greater. The proposed design provides a potential solution to alleviate the problem near the source (inland waterways). To accomplish this, a system prototype was created using an unmanned surface vehicle accompanied by a suite of sensors, allowing for object recognition and extraction. Two vision systems were used, one to provide object localization and the other to verify pollution upon extraction. The control system used information extracted from the object discovery system to provide heading commands to the unmanned surface vehicle (USV). The control system also utilized an extraction mechanism that removes pollution from the environment upon detection and deposits it onto the USV. The USV prototype successfully detected, maneuvered, and extracted five different pollution samples from an aquatic environment