The design of an autonomous recycling robot

For my thesis project, I worked in a team with five electrical and a mechanical engineer, to design and build an autonomous robot. This robot needs to be able to locate, collect, sort, and store to recycle beverage containers to be able to compete in the 2009 IEEE Southeast Conference Hardware Competition. The robot consists of a U-shaped base, with a robotic arm with a front-loaded shovel connected to the arm. Ultrasonic pings are then used to find and position the robot towards the container. Then front sweepers are used to sweep the container into the shovel. To realize that there is an object in the shovel there are infrared sensors to detect an object is in place before lifting. After lifting to upright position it has three different options to determine it is plastic, glass, or aluminum. There is a metal detector attached to determine if it is aluminum. Also a second platform was placed inside in between there is a switch and with enough weight it triggers that switch and is found to be glass. If it fails these two conditions then it is plastic. Once it is confirmed it dumps the object into one of the three disposable bags placed on the sides and the back of the robot. It also contains an inductor to tell the robot to sustain inside the dog fence that is along the parameter of the playing field