PlaCo : The plastic collecting robot

Abstract: The oceans are an essential global resource for all living organisms but especially for us humans. However, year after year we continue to neglect proper recycling of our waste, resulting in litter ending up in our oceans. The majority of said litter comes from single use plastic items. Through fragmentation and erosion, the plastic dissolves  to smaller pieces, once they are no larger than 5 mm theyare classified as micro- and nanoplastics. Little is known about these small plastic particles impact on marine life and marine environment. As a step towards understanding this, the robot PlaCo was created. PlaCo stands for plastic collecting which is exactly what the robot does. With the help of three filters PlaCo gathers marine debris, such as plastic, from the water in which it operates. The filters have decreasing mesh size resulting in the microplastics being caught in the last one. Once emptied, the finds can be examined and logged for future referencing. With the help of a sensor, blockages of the filters can be monitored and if detected, notice will be given to the user through a LED. In order for PlaCo to move forward and for water to travel through the filters, the robot was provided with two DC motors. A microcontroller, Arduino Uno, was used to regulate PlaCo’s functions. The performance of two different sensors, an IR-sensorand an ultrasonic sensor, were investigated as well as the robot's water cleaning capacity. The results indicate that the latter of the two sensors would be preferable due to its high reliability. However, the robot’s water cleaning capacity could not be measured due to the chosen motors not being powerful enough. In future iterations of PlaCo, thiswould need to be rectified.