MHK-RoboCatch: Context-Aware Robotic Trash Boom Powered By Marine Hydrokinetics

Floating trash in rivers is a major source of ocean pollution. Once in the ocean, litter makes its way into sensitive ecosystems, hurting both animal life and making beaches unsightly. Collecting floating litter in a costeffective way, however, is challenging to accomplish without impeding other critical river functions. Leveraging hydrokinetic energy and robotics, VPI Technology Group VPI has conceived and proved the viability of a unique and widely applicable approach to assess and monitor plastic debris levels in a waterway, and to collect and aggregate the debris, making it ready for extraction. Phase I analyzed the mechanics of the proposed approach, designed a proofofconcept system, and tested it on the Jordan River Utah. It also piloted techniques to automatically identify floating trash and/or surface traffic with cameras. Overall, the Phase I work demonstrated the function of the key pieces of the RoboCatch system: the active boom and the river monitoring. In Phase II, VPI will refine the development of the subsystems and combine them into a working system which will be deployed and evaluated on a U.S. river. The unique features of the proposed system allow collection and aggregation of waste from a wide range of waterway sizes, even when those rivers are frequented by heavy boat traffic. These features allow the system to be deployed in waterways running alongside heavy urban developments, including locales that are infamous for waterway pollution.