Smart Waste Management System for Smart City based on Internet of Things (IoT)
Timothy Malchea, Pradeep Kumar Tiwarib, Sumegh Tharewalc, Rajesh Tiwarid a,b,cManipal University Jaipur, India
dDepartment of Computer Sc & Engg., Bharat Institute of Engg. & Tech. Hyderabad, India
atimothy.malche@gmail.com; bpradeeptiwari.mca@gmail.com; csumeghtharewal@gmail.com; draj_tiwari_in@yahoo.com
Article History: Received: 10 January 2021; Revised: 12 February 2021; Accepted: 27 March 2021; Published online: 28
April 2021
Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT), an emerging wireless network, is a cohesive part of the future Internet as IoT
guarantees that ‘things’ with identities can communicate with one another. IoT can be applied in various areas such as smart cities, agriculture, energy, environment protection, health, home automation and much more. The IoT is an important catalyst for the connected world where all services are supposed to be available to users as and when required. This study proposes waste management experimental application which can be implemented in smart city. The waste management experiment proposed in this study is a connected system of smart objects, called the smart garbage bin, that enables real-time monitoring, sends automatic notification about the state of garbage to assist an effective waste management.
Keywords: Smart City, IoT Application, LoRa Protocol, Smart Garbage Bin, Remote Sensing, Smart Wase Management.
1. Introduction
The Smart Waste management system is an effort towards making city smart and clean. One of the main features of a smart city is to enable smart health services, and healthy environment. The proposed system fulfills this requirement [1][2].
It is well known that garbage bin is a common and a basic requirement. It has been observed that due irregular removal of garbage from the garbage bin leads to accumulation of garbage. The accumulated garbage surrounding the garbage bin result in air pollution and soil contamination and cause adverse effect on human health. Further the air pollution may lead to respiratory problems, breeding of mosquitoes and houseflies which can cause various diseases. A city which has poor hygiene, smelly and dirty environment is not a place for people to remain healthy. The main goal towards building smart waste management system is to utilize technology for effective waste management as well as to inspire people to keep their surrounding clean. The Smart Waste Management system is powered with Smart Garbage Bin which are of different sizes as per the need of the environment, wireless technologies, cloud services and mobile/desktop applications. Smart garbage bin generates a notification about the time to take the garbage out of the bin. The following figures display design of proposed smart garbage bin prototype.
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Fig. 2 Proposed Smart Garbage Bin Components 2. Related Work
Many research have been conducted in waste management. Saha et al. [3] proposed an intelligent waste management system that uses solar energy to operate and monitors the amount of waste accumulated in garbage bin. The smartbin can perform the compaction of the waste. The information is sent to cloud server where it is stored and accessed. The system uses WiFi connectivity. Another improved work in [4] proposes a Smart garbage bin which identifies whether the bin is full or not. The proposed system uses wireless mesh network to transmits the data it collects. In addition, The system also uses power consumption reduction to maximize operational time. Other similar work is proposed in [5]. The system can measure the level of garbage accumulated in real time and send the alert to municipality when the bin is full. The system uses ultrasonic sensors to measure the garbage level and it connects to ThingSpeak for data collection and analysis. The proposed system can differentiate four different types of garbage, such as domestic waste, paper, glass and plastic. The research in [6] focuses on the intelligent container. The garbage bin is equipped with infrared sensors to detect discarded garbage outside garbage bin, as well as also measure the level of garbage inside bin. Therefore the system can additionally alert for the accumulation of waste around the container. The system has components to collect accumulated waste around the compartment.
An intelligent waste collection system is proposed in [7]. The system determines the level of residues present in the garbage bin. The system is a battery powered and uses WiFi for data collection. The data by sensor nodes is transmitted to a MySQL database via the Internet. The system uses artificial intelligence (AI) approach to predict future waste levels and determine a lower route of disposal. Another research is proposed in [8]. The architecture of the system is based on an intelligent garbage bin that generate info about volume, type of content, and the environment surrounding the garbage bin. The garbage bin is equipped with a range of sensors for detection and communication. The work proposed in [9] also focuses waste management using smart bins. The proposed system is designed to handle type of waste such as wet waste, biodegradable paper, clothing, wood, glass, metal and hazardous waste. There are separate modules for each type of waste and are equipped with GPS module that determines the exact location of the garbage bin. The infrared sensor is used to detect the fill level. The system also has a gas sensor to detect harmful gases as well as a temperature and humidity sensor. The system can also monitor noise pollution. The system uses LoRa and MQTT for communication. The research work [10] proposes a a Smart City Garbage Collection and Monitoring System. The system is built using Raspberry Pi, GSM module for communication and ultrasonic sensor. The system detects level of garbage and sends the alert. The research in [11], presents an IoT-based smart waste management system. The system transmit garbage level information in realtime and uploads data to cloud server. Bigbelly is a commercial waste management solution presented in [12]. It is a solar-powered, garbage compacting dustbin manufactured by Bigbelly, USA. It is developed for Smart City, and based on IoT. Another similar work is proposed in[13]. It is also a commercial waste management system known as SmartBin. It is a complete based on IoT. One more commercial waste management solution named Bine
is proposed in [14] based on IoT. It has waste recognition capabilities and can sort types of wastes such as glass, plastic, metal, paper etc. It generates alert about the level of waste and perform waste compaction.
Most of the research work presented in this section deals with the management of solid waste with the focus only on sensor data gathering and waste collection. The system developed for monitoring the waste. In contrast to above researches the system proposed in this study not only monitor the level of garbage and generates notification but it can suggest the optimal route for the waste collectors. The network of smart dustbin of the proposed system can be expanded over a larger area with a low network cost and is also battery & solar powered and is optimized for low power consumption.
3. The System Architecture
The proposed smart garbage bin container uses an ultrasonic sensor to measures the level of garbage. The sensor operation is controlled by microcontroller unit. The garbage bin also consists of a LoRa module and solar powered battery. The solar panel recharge the battery and LoRa module transmit the garbage level data. The sensor data from the garbage bin is first sent to a gateway node using LoRa and gateway node converts the signal and sends the MQTT data to cloud server. Using this data, the information is generated and displayed on web application platform via various graphs and GUI components. There are two types of applications of proposed systems one for waste-collectors and other for citizens. The waste-collector can use the application to get information about the status/level of garbage in smart garbage bin and get notification whether it require cleaning or not. The status information is obtained remotely via the app. The application displays information such as the current level of garbage in garbage bin and the utilization each garbage bin. The overall architecture is presented in the following figures.
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Fig. 3 Proposed System Architecture
Fig. 4 Block diagram of the sensor node
Fig. 5 Smart Waste Management System Architecture
4. Components of the System
The sensory unit of garbage bin is made up of LoRa module, Arduino, PIR sensor, ultrasonic sensor, motors, charger and booster module, LiPo battery and solar panel. The system also has a LoRa based gateway node, implemented using Raspberry Pi, which does the protocol translation and also other operations such as data filtering etc. [15]. The system also has IoT cloud server where all the data is stored and processed.
Table 1 Components of the Smart Waste Management System
• Arduino / ESP32
• Power Saver Module
• Solar Panel 2.5 w
• LiPo battery 3.7v 6600 mAh • Ultrasonic Sensor
• PIR Sensor
• Motors
• Raspberry Pi 3
• LoRa Transceiver Module
5. Methodology
In the proposed smart waste management system, the garbage bin is equipped with the LoRa technology [16]. The LoRa makes the system low cost as there’s is very less expenses require to install the network and energy efficient cos it operates at less frequency and transmit small amount of data therefore requires less power making the device to run on battery for longer period of time or even years. The LoRa enabled garbage bins sends the information to central gateway over a long distance. The information sent by LoRa powered smart bins were received by gateway device which is also a LoRa enabled. The gateway retrieves the information, filters it, and sends it to middleware using MQTT protocol. Using LoRa the data transmission can be achieved at very long range therefore the very few gateway nodes are required to connect huge number of sensor nodes and the network of smart garbage bins can expand over a very large area in the smart city. In the architecture, the gateway nodes are always connected to continuous power source and also has the Internet connectivity. The gateway nodes are installed at some high location in the smart city such as on some tower or top of building so that the data transmitted by garbage bin may be easily received by gateway nodes.
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(c)
Fig. 6 Smart Garbage Bin Status Screen (a) Empty, (b) Moderate, (c) Critical
The above figure shows the status of garbage level in the smart garbage bin. The application also sends alert to as soon as the garbage level is high and whenever it requires cleaning. The citizens can use the application to locate the nearby smart garbage bin and they can also check its status that is what is the level of garbage and whether they can use it.
6. Wide Network Coverage
The proposed architecture of smart garbage bin is based on communication network powered by LoRa. Using LoRa, data can be transmitted at a very long range at very low cost which is not possible with other technology. Therefore, LoRa is suitable for smart city applications where data needs to be sent over longer distance such as 5-10 km or more, require low-cost infrastructure and consumes low energy which in turn again reduces cost. The proposed system architecture supports LoRa for such kind of applications and offers larger network coverage.
7. Low Energy Consumption
The sensor node in the proposed system may run on battery for longer period of time since it uses LoRa technology which require less energy but there are other components in the system that may consume battery like the MCU and sensors. Therefore, the system uses solar panel, LiPo battery and power booster and charger module. The authors in [17][18][19] proves that how spreading factor of LoRa can be utilized to save energy consumption. Apart from this the system also uses techniques as described in [15] to adjust duration of sensing and sleep cycle. Along with this the MQTT protocol also makes the solution energy efficient. Although, all the techniques described above helps in saving energy consumption, but it has been researched that the sensors and other components attached to microcontroller also consumes energy including microcontroller itself. Even if microcontroller is put to sleep mode, it still consumes battery power. Therefore, the solution is that give power to microcontroller and then perform operations only that duration of time and keep the microcontroller off all the other time. For this this study implements an extreme power saver circuit as described in [20]. As in Fig 4, the power saver circuit is attached to PIR sensor. Whenever the PIR detects a motion, it sends the power to microcontroller. The microcontroller then send HIGH signal to LATCH pin of power saver circuit to draw power from battery. As long as power is drawn from battery, the microcontroller performs the task such as opening and closing the lid, detecting garbage level and sending data to cloud server. After its all done the microcontroller sends the LOW signal to power circuit and batter power disconnects thus saving the energy. The system draws power from battery only when a TRIGGER pin receives high signal. The interface on power saver circuit is shown in following figure.
Fig. 7 Power saver module interface
Fig. 8 Smart Garbage Bin Status Screen [20] 8. Shortest Route Suggestion
To assist waste collectors, the proposed system also suggests the shortest path selection to reach to the garbage bin which is full and needs cleaning. For finding and suggesting the shortest path in the road network of smart waste management system, the Dijkstra’s algorithm [21][22][23] has been implemented. The algorithm finds the shortest path from starting point to the full garbage bin and highlight the path on the map in the application interface which assists the user to reach to the target garbage bin in minimum time.
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Fig. 12 Realtime deployment of Smart Garbage Network
9. Conclusion
There are many IoT applications to be developed for smart city which require low cost, low power consumption and which can run for long duration such as for one or more year and do not require maintenance or need low maintenance. It may also require large number of deployments of sensor nodes such as smart dustbin system presented in this experiment. Because city needs to have large number of such garbage bins deployed everywhere for effective waste management. For such application, the architecture presented in this experiment is very effective and reliable. This kind of architecture may be used in various other applications for smart city such as air pollution monitoring, smart water, smart streetlight and much more. The architecture presented in this experiment is reliable, reduces cost and maintenance and can be easily deployed over long distance. It can be controlled and managed very easily.
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