A novel autonomous microplastics surveying robot for beach environments

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel autonomous robotic system capable of detecting, chemically analyzing, and mapping microplastics on beaches, addressing key challenges in environmental monitoring with high precision and accuracy.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new robotic platform that combines visual detection and NIR spectroscopy for real-time microplastic analysis on beaches, a novel integration for environmental monitoring.

Findings

High microplastic classification accuracy achieved

Effective segmentation of microplastics in complex beach environments

Precise manipulation and analysis of microplastics in lab and field tests

Abstract

Microplastics, defined as plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters, have become a pervasive environmental contaminant that accumulates on beaches due to wind patterns and tidal forcing. Detecting microplastics and mapping their concentration in the wild remains one of the primary challenges in addressing this environmental issue. This paper introduces a novel robotic platform that automatically detects and chemically analyzes microplastics on beach surfaces. This mobile manipulator system scans areas for microplastics using a camera mounted on the robotic arm's end effector. The system effectively segments candidate microplastic particles on sand surfaces even in the presence of organic matter such as leaves and clams. Once a candidate microplastic particle is detected, the system steers a near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic sensor onto the particle using both NIR and visual feedback to chemically analyze it in real-time. Through experiments in lab and beach environments, the system is shown to achieve an excellent positional precision in manipulation control and high microplastic classification accuracy.