Sensor Fusion Based Plastic Bottles Classification System

Plastic bottles are increasingly becoming a serious
environmental problem. They are a major part of the
municipal waste due to their low density to volume
ratio and non-biodegradable nature. Therefore,
intensive research efforts have been made to provide
solutions to improve the efficiency of plastic
bottles recycling techniques. However, many of these
solutions focus on the plastic chemical composition
or color classification.
This book presents the design and implementation of
an automatic plastic bottles classification system
based on the combination of color and chemical
property. The system has hardware and software
architectures. The hardware architecture consists of
a computing device, a CCD camera and an NIR
spectrometer. The software architecture is developed
based on statistical classifiers and sensor fusion
techniques. The proposed system testing showed major
enhancements in plastic bottles sorting accuracy
based on the fusion of camera images and the spectrum
signature of plastic bottles.
This study should shed some light on a new
classification system solution and should be
especially useful to professionals in plastic
recycling and environment protection industry.

Autorentext

Y. Tachwali, Ph.D, Oklahoma Univ., Area of interest: DSP,Wireless Embedded Systems.A. R. Al-Ali, Ph.D, Vanderbilt Univ., Prof. of Computer Eng.,American Univ. of Sharjah. Area of interest: Embedded Systems. Y. Al-Assaf, Ph.D, Oxford Univ., Prof. of Electrical Eng.,American Univ. of Sharjah. Area of interest: Adaptive Control &Soft Computing.

Klappentext

Plastic bottles are increasingly becoming a seriousenvironmental problem. They are a major part of themunicipal waste due to their low density to volumeratio and non-biodegradable nature. Therefore,intensive research efforts have been made to providesolutions to improve the efficiency of plasticbottles recycling techniques. However, many of thesesolutions focus on the plastic chemical compositionor color classification. This book presents the design and implementation ofan automatic plastic bottles classification systembased on the combination of color and chemicalproperty. The system has hardware and softwarearchitectures. The hardware architecture consists ofa computing device, a CCD camera and an NIRspectrometer. The software architecture is developedbased on statistical classifiers and sensor fusiontechniques. The proposed system testing showed majorenhancements in plastic bottles sorting accuracybased on the fusion of camera images and the spectrumsignature of plastic bottles.This study should shed some light on a newclassification system solution and should beespecially useful to professionals in plasticrecycling and environment protection industry.