Fun Innovations Friday: Robot Dog Sucks Up Trash With Its Feet

As a former smoker, I always took issue with the complete lack of decency when people would just throw their cigarette butts anywhere but a trash can. On the golf course, it's just as annoying when you're trying to putt and someone decided the green was the right place to leave their butt. I was never one to throw a cigarette butt out of my car window either. In fact, I had a disgusting ashtray/trash can that fit in the cup holder. Yes, it was gross and I'm glad I kicked that habit. 

Thankfully, in the U.S., cigarette smoking has been on a decline with 11.5% of adults aged 18 and older being current smokers in 2021. That's quite a decline from the 20.9% reported in 2005. According to the European Commission, Europe has a higher prevalence with 18.4% of adults being current smokers. And Italy has a tiny bit higher rate with 19.3% percent of its adult population taking part in the habit. Even with the decline though, 4.5 trillion cigarettes are littered in the environment per year, worldwide.

So it doesn't seem so surprising that a team of researchers from the Dynamic Legged Systems lab at the Italian Institute of Technology created a robot vacuum that can identify and suck up cigarette butts on a beach as one of its projects. Named VERO (Vacuum-cleaner Equipped RObot), the quadruped robot is a four-legged device that is designed to look for and clean up litter on a variety of terrains.

The team published a paper in April 2024 on VERO's development and effectiveness in the Journal of Field Robotics. The paper states that cigarette butts are a serious concern for the environment as they release toxic chemicals and microplastics into the as they break down. The team also noted that cigarette butts are the second most common undisposed waste worldwide, in terrains that are hard to reach for wheeled and tracked robots.

VERO has a vacuum mounted on its back with hoses traveling down each leg to its feet. Able to autonomously navigate and handle diverse terrain, its two depth cameras—one front-facing and one on its chin that's downward-facing—enable it to move about safely while an AI program identifies any litter for it to vacuum up. It does move slowly, but it can handle more different types of terrain than a robot with wheels, which can't get to too many places, especially beaches or steps. It's also impressive how it can identify litter on the ground and then move into position so it's back foot can suck it up.

The team conducted extensive tests across six different outdoor scenarios. However, VERO didn't get every piece of trash in its initial test but it still picked up 90% of the cigarette butts identified in testing. That's 90% less waste that ends up in the ocean.

The researchers at IIT suggest a variety of other potential use cases, including spraying weeds in crop fields, inspecting cracks in infrastructure, and placing nails and rivets during construction.

Now if someone could also make a robot that sucks trash out of the ocean, we might be cooking with gas.

Fun Innovations Friday

Created by the editors of New Equipment Digest and Plant Services, Fun Innovations Friday is a feel-good blog that showcases how advances in science, math, engineering, and technology are making our world more whimsical. Here’s another post that is guaranteed to brighten your day.

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