Conceptual design and simulation study of an autonomous indoor medical waste collection robot

Shaju, Shawn
George, Thomas
Francis, Jithin Kunnath
Joseph, Manu
Thomas, Mervin Joe

IAES International Journal of Robotics and Automation (IJRA)
Vol 12, No 1: March 2023

Solid waste management is one of the critical challenges seen everywhere, and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has only worsened the problems in the safe disposal of infectious waste. This paper outlines a design for a mobile robot that will intelligently identify, grasp, and collect a group of medical waste items using a six-degree of freedom (DoF) arm, You Only Look Once (YOLO) neural network, and a grasping algorithm. Various designs are generated before running simulations on the selected virtual model using Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo simulator. A lidar sensor is also used to map the robot's surroundings and navigate autonomously. The robot has good scope for waste collection in medical facilities, where it can help create a safer environment.