PRE2016 3 Groep5: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:42, 26 March 2017

Group Members

Student ID	Name
0957942	N.S.A. Messaoudi
0958470	J.J.J.B. Verstappen
0955491	C. van Otterlo
0939540	M.J.M. Smits
0956810	W.J.P. Goudriaan
0953119	J.I.A. Spapen

Presentation

Current situation:

For years the ocean has accumulated a lot of plastic, trapping it in the sea’s current. This plastic soup has become a danger to the oceans ecosystems and it’s wildlife. It has become a danger for animals because birds can get stuck in the plastic, birds and fish eat the plastic. When it decomposes the fish get contaminated with the various toxic residues. This contaminates the whole food chain as birds, larger fish and humans eat the contaminated marine wildlife. Furthermore some species can get dragged along with the floating garbage and negatively influence new ecosystems in which they get introduced.

Concept idea:

We want to design an autonomous robot to help clean the ocean’s garbage. In order to reach this goal the robot has to have certain functions: First of it has to perceive it’s environment and the plastic contaminating it. It has to know or have the ability to get the plastic out of the water, this includes the waves and current of the ocean it’s cleaning. Once it has retrieved the plastic it has to compress it, store it in safe space aboard the robot and empty the compartment at a designated location when full.

Users:

The technology we want to design will influence the users future by investing in a better environment by cleaning it, preserving the current ecosystems contaminated by the plastic and lastly it helps preventing people from eating contaminated food as mentioned earlier.

Society:

By using the technology society will improve the future by stopping the influence plastic has on the environment. Cleaning the ocean is a start to creating a better society. And lastly it will preserve the current marine wildlife.

Enterprise:

This technology can be used by the government to clean up the ocean and may be sponsored by foundations as Greenpeace and the WWF.

Challenges:

The biggest challenges in creating a suitable cleaning agent are that it needs to know where it is and where it needs to go. It needs to distinguish plastic content from any other products or wildlife it’s trying to safe, otherwise it would further damage the ecosystem. In order to do the two things mentioned above it needs to take into account the currents and waves so it doesn’t try to clean sections it has already cleaned and because of the current these locations will changes constantly. A big part of the problem is the fact that it needs to be optimized in order to be efficient in cleaning. If one has more than one robot, they need to be able to “communicate” to prevent them from doing each other’s work, also this needs separate optimization because of the fact that we’re dealing with multiple entities. And lastly the technology needs to be sustainable and durable itself, because it wouldn’t have a use if it were to pollute the environment more than it is cleaning it.

History and background of the plastic Ocean

The dawn of plastics was in America at the year 1850. However only since 1945, it was inseparable from our society, where it brought us great fortune and great use. Plastics helped people carry drinks, package foods and could be used as a toy for the kids. Present-day plastics are still used in large quantities, helping us in daily life, however the use of plastics also has its dark side. While plastic is recyclable most of the time, it is not sure whether a plastic bottle for instance gets recycled at all. People throw their garbage, which is mainly plastic, far too easily on the ground and in the rivers. Polluting the mainland and the oceans, or the environment as a whole, . Where on the mainland there are a lot of organizations, which focus on preserving the mainland’s environment. For example by sending people who collect plastics and other waste next to roads and in forests. The amount of organizations in the seas and oceans are however, greatly outnumbered. While the organizations on the mainland can hardly keep the pollution at a steady level, the pollution in the seas and oceans has risen exponentially for several years already. The plastics in the ocean decompose gradually which results in a highly soiled sea which is more difficult to clean up. The small parts of plastics influence the marine ecosystem as a whole. Fish cannot tell food and plastic apart and slowly gets poisoned and killed by the toxic plastic in its stomach. The same happens to many birds that gets their food out of the water, for example the albatross displayed below.

Image albatross

These plastics not only have an influence on the life of fish and birds, but it also has a great influence on mankind. Polluting our drinking water, which is more difficult to purify, and polluting the food chain where we are on top, so that means that we eat all the toxins that animals below us eat. Therefore it is time that mankind focuses on cleaning up the ocean more effectively. In this project we want to create an AI which can help in the dusk of the plastic ocean. In that way the marine ecosystem can be preserved and mankind’s skin can be saved.

Plan of execution

In this part of the chapter we’re going to define a plan of execution for the chosen project challenge. This will include a first explanation of the things we need to execute to reach our goal. Then there will be a definition of tasks, timetable, deliverables, milestones, Gant chart.

- First, we want to analyze what the current situation is and at what scale we can clean up the plastic polluted ocean. After that we want to analyze what it takes to clean up a part of ocean.

- Contact companies to get more information about demand/the current situation.

- Then we will look at what kind of robot will be fit for gathering garbage. The robot has to be designed.

- After that the strategy it will use will be made. It is ofcourse difficult to decide how to place them.

- After the strategy is determined, a model in netlogo will be made, to see if the strategy works.

- With that information we can draw a conclusion of how it will work and if it will work.

Current Situation

Here, we want to analyze the current situation to determine at what scale we can clean up the plastic polluted ocean. The situation is already sketched in the introduction, however in this part it will be clarified more thoroughly. Recently, the accumulation and possible impact of micro-plastic particles in the ocean have been recognized as an emerging environmental issue. To reduce the quantity of plastic entering the ocean, existing management instruments need to be made more effective and all aspects of waste treatment and disposal need to be improved. Media attention has focused on reports of the relatively high incidence of plastic debris in areas of the ocean referred to as ‘convergence zones’ or ‘ocean gyres’. This has given rise to the widespread use of terms like ’plastic soup’, ‘garbage patch’ and ‘ocean landfill’. Such terms are rather misleading in that much of the plastic debris in the ocean consists of fragments that are very small in size while the areas where they are floating are not, for example, distinguishable on satellite images. Nevertheless, publicity for plastic debris in the ocean has helped to raise public and political awareness of the global scale of the plastic debris problem, together with the larger issue of marine litter. It is difficult to quantify the amounts and sources of plastic and other types of debris entering the ocean. Land-based sources include poorly managed landfills, river transport, untreated sewage and storm water discharges, industrial and manufacturing facilities within adequate controls, wind-blown debris, recreational use of coastal areas, and tourist activities(Barnes et al. 2009). These sources are thought to dominate the overall supply of marine debris, but there are important regional variations. For example, shipping and fisheries are significant contributors in the East Asian Seas region and the southern North Sea (UNEP/COBSEA 2009, Galgani et al. 2010). In general, more litter is found closer to population centers, including a greater proportion of consumer

2 images

plastic items, such as bottles, shopping bags and personal hygiene products(Ocean Conservancy 2010). As already stated, the ocean is littered with a lot of plastic, almost 80 percent of the plastic that can be found in the oceans originated from the shores. The plastic is carried along by the currents that exist in the ocean. These plastics sometimes run ashore where they can be easily gathered by humans with a garbage bag, however often those plastics stay in the ocean and drift all over the world. Therefore we wanted to look at the idea of collecting plastics inside a gyre, because gyres have a circular current which means that these plastic will float in circles for a long time and therefore can be more easily detected then plastics which stay outside of a gyre. There are 5 huge gyres in the total stretch of ocean. These gyres are given in the picture below.

image gyres

These five gyres are evaluated to determine whether it is realistic to clean up a gyre at all. They are evaluated by mentioning the following aspects: - Size gyre - Flow speed - Plastic Supply - The amount of plastic - Size patch The results of these 5 gyres are given in a table in the appendix.

Existing organizations

Facts

- More litter is found closer to population centers, including a greater proportion of consumer plastic items such as bottles, shopping bags and personal hygiene products (Ocean Conservancy 2010).

- In general, potential chemical effects are likely to increase with a reduction in the size of plastic particles while physical effects, such as the entanglement of seals and other animals in drift plastic, increase with the size and complexity of the debris.

- Costs associated with the presence of plastic and other types of marine debris are often borne by those affected rather than those responsible for the problem (ten Brink et al. 2009, Mouat et al. 2010). The most obvious impacts are economic, such as loss of fishing opportunities due to time spent cleaning litter from nets and propellers, and blocked water intakes. Marine litter costs the Scottish fishing industry an average of between US$15 million and US$17 million per year, the equivalent of 5 per cent of the total revenue of affected fisheries. Marine litter is also a significant ongoing navigational hazard for vessels, as reflected in the increasing number of coastguard rescues to vessels with fouled propellers in Norway and the United Kingdom: there were 286 such rescues in British waters in 2008, at a cost of up to US$2.8 million (Mouat et al. 2010).

- Cleanups of beaches and waterways can be expensive. In the Netherlands and Belgium, approximately US$13.65 million per year is spent on removing beach litter.

- Other considerations include ‘aesthetic intangible costs’. Litter can affect the public’s perception of the quality of the surrounding environment. This, in turn, can lead to loss of income by local communities engaged in tourism, and in some cases by national economies dependent on tourism and associated economic activities (ten Brink et al. 2009, Mouat et al. 2010).

International conventions and tackling the problem

Monitoring, surveillance and research focusing on plastic and other types of marine litter have increased in recent years. Nevertheless, a comprehensive set of environmental indicators for use in assessments has been lacking, as have related social and economic indicators. These types of indicators could include trends in coastal population increase and urbanization, plastics production, fractions of waste recycled, tourism revenue, waste disposal methods, shipping tonnage and fishing activities. Indicators also provide a means to measure the effectiveness of mitigation measures, such as improved waste management and the introduction of economic measures. At the regional level, the European Commission is developing methods to assess the extent of the marine litter problem. This activity is taking place under the comprehensive Marine Strategy Framework Directive (EU 2008, Galgani et al. 2010), with indicators being produced to monitor progress towards achieving ‘good environmental status’ by 2020.

Image

Short summary: two major conventions specifically address marine litter in the ocean: MARPOL and London convention with its protocol (London Protocol). Three categories: 1. shipping pollution(MARPOL); 2. reception facilities at ports and terminals for the reception of garbage; 3. control of dumping of wastes at sea that have been generated on land (London convention).

Ocean clean up

TECHNOLOGY

Cleanup using conventional methods - vessels and nets - would take thousands of years and tens of billions of dollars to complete. The ocean clean up’s passive system could remove about half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 10 years, at a fraction of the cost. Why move through the ocean, if the ocean can move through you? Ocean garbage patches are vast but dispersed. By acting like an artificial coastline, the ocean clean up initiative passively concentrates the plastic by orders of magnitude, 100% powered by natural ocean currents. Their passive cleanup units are designed to capture virtually any type of debris. Models show that by utilizing vast rotational ocean currents, cleanup systems with a combined span of 100km can harvest almost half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 10 years.

Instead of using nets, The Ocean Cleanup uses solid screens which catches the floating plastic, but allows sea life to pass underneath the barrier with the current. The Ocean Cleanup Array is designed to be as flexible as possible. This allows it to move along with the waves, which is key in ensuring the structure will be able to survive the most extreme conditions. Thanks to the orientation of the barriers moored to the seabed, plastic will slowly be pushed towards the center of the array, becoming even more concentrated. A central collection point extracts and buffers the debris, before being shipped to land. By recycling the debris and selling the semi-finished product directly to B2C companies, they aim to eventually make the operation self-sustainable. The modular array approach can be applied on any scale; from small-scale systems to intercept plastic near land, to multi-kilometer installations to clean up ocean garbage patches.

30 DECEMBER 2015 FIRST CLEANUP BARRIER TEST TO BE DEPLOYED IN DUTCH WATERS

The Ocean Cleanup will be deploying a 100 meter-long barrier segment in the second quarter of 2016 in the North Sea, 23 km off the coast of The Netherlands The main objective of the North Sea test is to monitor the effects of real-life sea conditions, with a focus on waves and currents. The motions of the barrier and the loads on the system will be monitored by cameras and sensors. The floating barriers are regarded as one of the most critical elements of the concept, since they are responsible for capturing and concentrating the plastic debris. The North Sea test will be helping to ensure the effectiveness and durability once the large-scale system will be deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2020. Sponsors/Partners their partners can be found on the following page https://www.theoceancleanup.com/partners/

OTHER INITIATIVES FOR OCEAN CLEANUP

The Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities

The Global Programme of Action (GPA) for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities, whose Secretariat is provided by UNEP, is the only global initiative that directly addresses the link between watersheds, coastal waters and the open ocean (UNEP/GPA 2011). It provides a mechanism for the development and implementation of initiatives to tackle trans-boundary issues. Plastic and other types of marine debris are such an issue. In collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations(FAO), a comprehensive report on abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear has been published (Macfadyen et al. 2009).

Regional initiatives

The Global Initiative on Marine Litter, a co-operative activity of UNEP/GPA and the UNEP Regional Seas Programme (UNEP/RSP), has organized and implemented numerous regional marine litter activities. The 18 Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans could serve as platforms for developing common regional strategies and promoting synergies, mainly at the national level, to prevent, reduce and remove marine litter (UNEP 2009b)

National and local initiatives

Ways to better understand and ultimately reduce the flow of plastic debris to the ocean are being sought through a range of national and local initiatives. For example, in the United States improved monitoring and assessment methods have been developed to identify and quantify the amounts and composition of marine litter. This initiative is coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its partners. In the United Kingdom, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) encourages businesses to reduce waste, increase recycling and decrease reliance on landfill (WRAP 2011). To help raise awareness, UNEP and NOAA co-hosted the 5th International Marine Debris Conference in March 2011 (IMDC 2011).

Industry initiatives

- The Fishing for Litter campaign is an example of a low cost voluntary activity. Developed through the Local Authorities International Environmental Organisation, it encourages fishers based around the North Sea to collect and bring to port any litter retrieved in their nets (KIMO 2011).

- Regional Marine Environment Protection Associations (MEPAs) have been established by the shipping sector to preserve the marine environment through educating those in the sector, port communities and children. (HELMEPA 2011) The MEPAs’ commitment ‘To Save the Seas’ includes voluntary cooperation to protect the marine environment from pollution, awareness and educational activities, promotion of health and safety standards, and enhancement of quality standards and professional competence throughout the organization’s membership (INTERMEPA 2011).

- The American and British plastics industries have implemented Operation Clean Sweep to reduce losses of resin pellets to the environment, particularly during their transport and shipment. Motivated by the need to comply with legislation, but also sound economics and good environmental stewardship, Operation Clean Sweep is contributing to the reduction of plastic pellets found in marine debris (Operation Clean Sweep 2011).

NGO Initiatives

- The 5 Gyres initiative, which is currently investigating the distribution of micro-plastics and POPs in each of the five main ocean gyres in conjunction with Pangea Expeditions and the UN Safe Planet Campaign (5 Gyres 2011).

- Using equipment loaned to them, citizen scientists collect samples of plastic debris during their own sailing voyages and report their findings to the Algalita Foundation (Travel Trawl 2011).

- Project Kaisei is testing ways to remove some of the plastic in the ocean using low energy catch methods. Further studies are designed to determine types of remediation or recycling that could be applied to collected plastic material, including derelict fishing nets, so that there will be some potential for economic value creation to subsidize cleanup efforts (Project Kaisei 2011).

- The annual International Coastal Cleanup organized by the Ocean Conservancy is the world’s largest volunteer effort to collect information on the amounts and types of marine debris. In 2009, 498818 volunteers from 108 countries and locations collected 3357 tonnes of debris from over 6000 sites (Ocean Conservancy 2010). Plastic bags, the second most common item removed, have much greater potential impact than the number one item (cigarettes/cigarette filters).

- Clean Up the World is an initiative started by an individual motivated to take action by the amount of plastic debris he discovered when sailing in the open ocean. Since 1993, it has developed into an international program designed to encourage communities to work together to make a positive difference to the environment (CUW 2011).

scources: 1. http://www.wur.nl/upload_mm/8/7/e/d4e96e28-e836-46ca-8467-664f529430c8_Plastic%20debris%20in%20the%20ocean.pdf main article used for this 2. http://www.wur.nl/nl/Dossiers/dossier/Plastic-afval-in-zee.htm database with atricles about plastic debris 3. https://www.theoceancleanup.com/ ocean clean up

Final project plan

After some consideration and research we concluded that gyres were not achievable in our project to clean up. First of all, The gyres were way too big. Second, often, the plastics are too small due to decomposition. Third, there are already some organizations, like the Ocean-Clean-Up , which are trying to develop a plan to clean up the gyres (Other information about the gyres can be found in the appendix). Therefore, we want to have a closer look at our home and trying to focus on the North Sea. This means that we won’t clean up the ocean entirely, but we will make a robot that will prevent the plastics in the North Sea to join any gyre at all. This plan, when executed in the right way, could be implemented at many other shores throughout the world. This means that other big companies can focus on the clean up inside a gyre and our robot will prevent the gyre from getting bigger. We hope to get financial support by the government of the Netherlands, “ministerie van infrastructuur en Milieu” to be precise. We think that getting rid of all the plastics in the North Sea will result in a better environment, and a better habitat for all the marine wildlife in the North sea. Furthermore, the Netherlands are characterized by its great amount of water, which means that for a good environment inside the Netherlands we have to start with creating a better environment in the waters surrounding the shores. Furthermore, we know for a fact that the government of the Netherlands want to make an effort in cleaning up the garbage in national and international waters. Therefore we think that the government will be interested to possibly invest in our project. To determine where we should station the groups of robot we should take the currents in the North Sea near the Netherlands and the sources of the plastics that came from the shores into account. The currents near the Netherlands are as follows:

two images

The current of the Northsea flows northbound, parallel to the coast of the Netherlands. This is the case for the upstream which contains the floating pieces of plastic. However, this is the case when the there is a high tide. For a low tide the current will shift southbound. This will have no influence on the placement of the robots, because the currents location will not change. The hot-spots for where to place the robots will be determined by a few factors e.g. shipping traffic, recreational beaches and fishing industry. The three most visited recreational beaches in the Netherlands are Zandvoort, Scheveningen and Renesse. The three biggest harbors of the Netherlands can be found in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Vlissingen. Fisheries can be mostly found in the province of Zeeland and in Ijmuiden. When we take all these locations into account we can set up the following potential locations to station the robots.

image

We included Den Helder because it also is an important harbor and the pass way into the Waddenzee. Furthermore, we included a part of the North Sea above the Waddeneilanden because we can use it as a control group, to see how much plastic remains in the current after passing several areas where our robots patrol. Our project is an success when at the end of the stream (so at the Waddeneilanden) there is no plastic found after the control group, when there is a high tide. In case of a low tide this control group will be at the area in Zeeland. The plan is to apply robots which scan and map the coastline of the Netherlands. Furthermore they will monitor the amount of plastic and other waste floating in the area. The AI can choose which path is most efficient to clean up the plastics. The system will be a multiple agent environment which means that is has to stay in contact with other agents to clean up the area more efficient. The difference between high tide and low tide will slightly change the most efficient path that the robot has to go, due to the changing current. The AI will gather and store the plastics found in a compartment inside its own body. When the compartment is full the AI can bring it to several spots where the waste is gathered and where the waste can possibly be recycled. The AI has to deal with sea creatures and sea traffic. The AI has to distinguish the difference between waste and marine wildlife. Now that the focus of our project is clear we will try to get more into the logistics of the problem.

Logistics

At sea the plastic will be gathered and compressed, but the robot has only so much space for the compressed packages. So as soon as the storage space is full, it has to empty itself. In the previous chapter 5 main locations were given in which the robots would operate. At each of these locations a general gathering point has to be established. So the robots operating in area X each share the same gathering point Y where they can deliver their garbage.

Now all the plastic is gathered at the shore is will have to be compressed once more. The compressors on the robot only have so much power, so in order to make the transport on land as efficient as possible they have to be compressed by a bigger compressor before the final package can be loaded on its next transporter. Seen from the map of the Netherlands Utrecht would be the best point for a global gathering point of all the plastic, due to its central geographic position. The only 2 realistic forms of transport are either by truck or train. The more remote the gathering point is the harder it is to transport them by train, since railroads aren’t as common as highways. Another aspect is that the dense populated areas often have to burden with traffic jams. The combination of these elements lead to the conclusion that for the remote areas 1* and 5* transportation by truck will be more efficient, while for areas 2*,3* and 4* the train would be a more beneficial alternative.

:

1. The coastline of ‘’Zeeland’’, especially peninsulas ‘’Walcheren’’ and ‘’Schouwen-Duiveland’’ (including hotspots like ‘’Vlissingen’’ and ‘’Renesse’’).

2. The outlet of the harbour of ‘’Rotterdam’’ and ‘’Scheveningen’’.

3. The outlet of the harbour of ‘’Amsterdam’’ and ‘’Zandvoort’’.

4.The harbour of ‘’Den Helder’’ and coastline of ‘’Texel’’.

5. The northern part of ‘’de Waddenzee’’ especially the 2 bigger islands ‘’Terschelling’’ and ‘’Ameland’’.

Taking a look at the map of the province of ‘’Utrecht’’ a good collecting point would be ‘’Breukelen’’ or ‘’Woerden’’, since it both places are reachable by either truck and train and they lay well out of the busy ring road of ‘’Utrecht’’. In one of those place a collecting point would be established, where after collection the plastic can be recycled.

image For the 5 gathering points at the coast the most central point will be chosen as location for collection the pre-compressed garbage. Like already mentioned the plastic will be compressed once more by a stronger compressor before it gets stocked in a container which can be shipped to the main collecting point. Since nobody wants a garbage dump in their backyard a town won’t be the best solutions, but any piece of unused land at the shore not too far from the highway would suffice.

Milestones

Given the sheer size of the plastic soup, stated in the chapter context, cleaning it up will be a difficult time-consuming process. So there are some milestones that have to be set, so the progress can be somewhat measured. Basically those milestones are intermediate objectives we set for ourselves, in order to keep the project realistic in the given time.

The ultimate goal is obviously to clean up the whole plastic soup which currently floats in the oceans, as fast as possible. Another goal is to solve the problem at the source, plastic getting thrown in the oceans. Our robot help prevent the plastic soup from getting bigger.

Starting with the first milestone, removing plastic from the oceans. Since the plastic soup is approximately between 700.000 and 15.000.000 square kilometres big it will take years to clean it up entirely. Another problem is that there isn’t just one soup, there are multiple soups located on different parts of the earth. According to Boyan Slats it would take less than 5 years to clean up one gyre. Since there are the 5 major gyres, with only one cleaning system it would still take over two decades to clean up the plastic, so this would be a realistic milestone time-wise.

Another import issue is the definition of a clean ocean. The soup isn’t necessarily visible plastic, it is also the for a part micro plastics. After a period of time a part of the plastic breaks down into micro plastics, those micro plastics end up in the food chain. As a consequence water gets a certain amount of micro parts plastic per cubic meter. We don’t think it is a realistic milestone to purify the water to that extend, so we will define clean as all the visible plastic removed.

Those were the main milestones for the cleaning part of the project. But to solve a problem one has to start at the source. In this case the plastic being thrown in the oceans. This problem can be tackled in two ways, a legal prohibition or a clean-up service right at the shores. A combination of those will probably work best. Since approximately 80% of the plastic ends up in the soup comes from the shores, the rest is due to the sea-industry. So there is definitely room for improvement on that area. The ultimate goal with our platform solution (see chapter context) is to make the coast plastic free, so the soup won’t grow any bigger than it already is.

Tasks

1. State-of-the-art: what is the current situation in our field of research? (2 persons)

  Literature study
  What can be improved?

2. Description of the robot + requirements (2 persons)

  What kind of robot? (drone, floating, etc.)
  How does the robot pick up the plastic?
  How does the robot store the picked up plastic?
  How much plastic can the robot carry?
  Where does the robot take the plastic?
  What is done with the plastic once it’s removed from the sea?

3. NetLogo (2 persons)

  Create the environment of the robot in NetLogo
  Simulate the robot’s behavior

4. Conclusions (everybody)

  Is the robot efficient?
  Will the robot reduce the plastic soup? Or just prevent it from growing bigger?

State-of-the-art: has to be done at the end of week 5

Description of the robot: has to be done at the end of week 5

NetLogo: has to be done at the end of week 6

Conclusions: has to be done at the end of week 7

All the different tasks can start right away, except the conclusions, these will start in week 7.

Different types of cleaning robots:

In this section we will define three types of robots.

The first are robots that clean the ocean via brute force, this means they keep cleaning the same designated area over and over until they have run out of battery to the point their program tells them to move to a charging station. The second type are robots that use sensors to recognize the shape of plastic and other pollution and move to the location to clean it up. After they’ve cleaned up the garbage they start scanning again. And lastly the third type are robots that use ultrasound to scan the ocean for garbage and use the same cleaning procedure as robot prototype two. Below follows a description of the different types, good and bad aspects and both construction and operating cost.

Brute force option:

Description: This prototype will have all the basic necessities, this means storage, motors, the ability to float on water, GPS and a mechanism for retrieving garbage from the ocean. It’s way of working is via brute force: from the central communication center it will get allocated to an area of the ocean. Once the robot arrives at its location it will start moving over the whole area, sweeping up every piece of garbage on its way. Once it is done it will start over again until the battery level hits a certain threshold or the compartment is full, after which it will make its way over to the charging station and get its compartment emptied as well.

Good and bad points:

Good:

- Simple design

- When the path of cleaning is well designed, it should have few pieces of garbage seeping through its area

- Compartments can be smaller due to the fact that more robots need to be used for cleaning

Bad:

- Needs a lot more agents than the other two options due to the fact that it’s using brute force instead of targeted cleaning, or the cleaning can take much longer than when using the other options

- Even with good cleaning paths the garbage can get through

- More agents means more charging options and more substitution agents to fill up the gaps from traveling agents, which can in turn cost more

Cost: The costs of this option will be the least of all the options listed. Due to the fact that this option uses only the features that are absolutely necessary in this robot. But the fact that more robots could be necessary (see above), the costs could go up.

Shape recognition option:

Description This prototype will have all the basic necessities as described in the previous prototype, but it will also be outfitted with a camera and shape recognition software. From the central communication center it will get allocated to an area of the ocean. Once arrived it will start scanning the area for shapes it deems worthy of cleaning up. When it sees a shape it perceives as plastic, it will move over to the location and clean it up, storing it in the compartment. When done it will move on with scanning and the cycle will start over again until the battery level hits a certain threshold or the compartment is full, after which it will make its way over to the charging station and get its compartment emptied as well.

Good and bad points:

Good:

- Targeted cleaning means less agents than brute force cleaning

- Less agents means less charging options and substitute agents which means lower construction and operation cost

Bad:

- Technology is not yet advanced to the point that it is a feasible option due to the recognition range

- Pixel distortion and image distortion can lead to recognition of non-existent garbage

- In scanning and cleaning garbage can seep through if the software is not correctly calibrated.

- Cameras have no depth perception when using a single camera, since it only tracks pixel data and no distance

- Some things that are garbage might not be received as such

Cost: The costs of this option would rise severely owing to the fact that shape recognizing technology is fairly new to the market, and new technologies tend to cost more than technologies already longer existing. The implementing of this technology could also cause a rise in the costs. The size of the sensor would cause an increase in the dimensions and weight of the robot, among other things.

Ultrasound option:

Description This prototype will have all the basic necessities as described in the first prototype, but it will also be outfitted with an ultrasound device. From the central communication center it will get allocated to an area of the ocean. When it gets there it will start scanning the ocean for pieces of plastic and other garbage. When it sees something it perceives as garbage the same procedure as the second prototype is initiated.

Good and bad points:

Good:

- Targeted cleaning means less agents than brute force cleaning

- Less agents means less charging options and substitute agents which means lower construction and operation cost

- Wide scanning area

- Tracks depth

- Can recognize garbage that is underwater

Bad:

- Small objects might not be recognized, as they are seen as noise or get lost in continuous error and noise adjustments.

- Maritime life can be seen as garbage and therefore cleaned up.

- Presumably very sensitive to adjustments

- Might have low accuracy compared to prototype two

Cost: The costs of this option will lie in between the costs of the other two options. The ultrasound technology has been on the market for a longer time, so it is further developed, and also cheaper and less than shape recognizing sensors. Another advantage is that waterproof ultrasound sensors already exist and could easily be bought. Ultrasound sensors sell at prices between $10 and $250. We need to determine the scanning range in order to choose one type of ultrasound sensor, and with that its price.

Our choice: We chose for the ultrasound option, because this extra added feature is worth its costs. It adds efficiency to the robot in a way that it knows where objects in the sea are in its direct environment.

Our Goal: With the use of our robot we want to make sure that all the plastic waste that originates from the coast of the Netherlands is cleaned up and therefore doesn’t move to the gyres.

Information gathering

1. Is er voldoende behoefte aan een oplossing voor dit probleem, zodat de investering daadwerkelijk gemaakt gaat worden?

Er zijn vele organisaties die zich bezig houden met dit probleem, en die er ook echt het probleem van inzien. Niet alleen de vervuilingskwestie op zich vormt volgens deze organisaties een probleem, maar ook de gezondheidskwesties wanneer de plastics afbreken en in de voedselketen terecht komen. In deze organisaties worden vaak veel geld investeert vanuit de regering, echter vaak zijn deze organisaties lang bezig met het vinden van een oplossing en steken ze tot nu toe vaak op concept ideeën. Als wij dus kunnen aantonen dat ons project dé oplossing is, zal er zeker geld in geïnvesteerd worden. 2. Welke soorten plastic voorwerpen komen het meest voor als afval in de Noordzee?

Verschillende instanties zoals Rijkswaterstaat en Stichting de Noordzee monitoren het (plastic) afval op de stranden en in de Noordzee. Hieruit is een top 10 samengesteld van de meest voorkomende afvalitems; a. Touwen en netten b. Stukjes plastic c. Plastic zakken d. Doppen e. Snoepverpakkingen f. Ballonnen g. Plastic drank flessen h. Hout i. Plastic voedsel verpakking j. Industrieel plastic

3. Wat is de voornaamste bron van plastic afval aan de Nederlandse kustlijn gezien?

Meer dan de helft van het afval komt van de maritieme sector. Dus logischerwijs zijn de grote havensteden geografisch gezien een ‘’hotspot’’ wat betreft het dumpen van plastic afval in de Noordzee. De overige vervuiling komt voornamelijk bij de strandgangers vandaan, dus ook drukbezochten stranden zijn potentiële schoonmaak plaatsen.

4. Zijn er zogeheten ‘’Hotspots’’ waar het afval zich (onder invloed van stroming) verzamelt, zijn deze op land en/of op zee? Zo ja, waar bevinden deze plekken zich?

Het is in het algemeen het geval dat het plastic qua afmeting kleiner wordt naarmate men verder uit de kust gaat kijken. Onze focus ligt voornamelijk op de grotere stukken plastic, dus in combinatie met de vorige vraag kunnen de hotspots worden vastgelegd rond de uitmondingen van rivieren en havens en langs de kustlijn van drukbezochte stranden.

5. Aan welke orde van grootte moeten we denken bij de hoeveelheid plastic afval die in de Noordzee drijft, heeft u hier precieze cijfers van?

Wat betreft de bodemvervuiling van de Noordzee spreken we over 110 stukken plastic per km² in de Noordzee. De vervuiling langs de kustlijn bedraagt 380 stukken afval per 100 meter strand.

6. Op welke dieptes bevindt het plastic afval zich voornamelijk?

De grootste concentratie afval is rond of op het oppervlakte. Er is gemeten tot op een diepte van 5 meter en hieruit bleek dat 80% van het afval zich bevond in de eerst 2-3 meter.

7. Zijn er vergelijkbare projecten zoals deze en zo ja, wat houden deze in?

Een vergelijkbaar project is de ocean clean up. Het idee is dat op grote schaal afval uit de North pacific gyre gehaald wordt met behulp van 2 lange armen. Echter is dit project op een veel grotere schaal met hogere concentratie afval per km^2 dus niet echt toepasbaar op ons probleem.

Een ander project is opgezet door waternet. Het heeft een autonome robot gemaakt die heel erg op onze robot lijkt en door het water vaart en afval op een loopband met zich meeneemt.

Een ander vergelijkbaar project is opgezet door de recycled Island foundation. ze maken een soort vallen en plaatsen deze aan de kust van Rotterdam op strategische plekken en vangen op die manier plastic op.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXlv8fgj80&feature=youtu.be

Garbage distribution

Before we can start with designing our robot we need to have an impression of where our target, the garbage, is located. After contacting several organizations we were able to make a proper estimation of how the garbage is disturbed in the Northsea.

Starting off with the depth of the garbage, research has shown that in a water column of 5 meter, starting at the surface, 80% of the it can be found in the top 2 to 3 meters [1]. However, these numbers follow from measurements done in the North Atlantic Gyre, so do they also hold for the situation in the Northsea? Without going to much in physical detail, we will try to explain if the North Atlantic ocean is comparable with the Northsea. A object floats if it has a smaller density then the liquid. Density is a ratio of mass and volume and since these quantities are the same in both situations we can assume the results of the study are also applicable for the Northsea.

The second variable is the distance of the plastic to the coast. Since we couldn’t find any reports with the necessary data we contacted Rijkswaterstaat. It turned out there isn’t any specific data, but the rule-of-thumb is; the further away from the coast, the smaller and less dense the garbage gets. Combining this information with location of the hotspots (outlet of rivers, harbours and beaches), only a few potential locations remain.

1. The vertical distribution of buoyant plastics at sea: an observational study in the North Atlantic Gyre – J. Reisser, B. Slat, K. Noble, K. du Plessis, M. Epp, M. Proietti, J. de Sonneville, T. Becker and C. Pattiaratchi

Requirements and inspirations

Requirements: The robot needs a container were it can store retrieved plastic. The dimensions of this container are a width of 0.8 meters, a length of 0.8 meters and a height of 1,5 meters. The container needs to be able to be taken out of the whole boat easily. This can be done with handles at the top sides. By making clips that hold the container in the boat, it cannot move when it is operating. However when it has to be taken out of the boat it should be easily loosened with those clips. It also means that when the container is full it should know that it has to go to a point where it can empty itself. This can be done for example by a sensor that sees, that when the plastic is higher than a certain point it should empty itself.

An agent needs to retrieve plastic by using a net. The net is attached to a rotating engine. This way it can fish the plastic out of the sea and put it in the container. This can be seen at the picture below. This is only a picture to be used for the net idea itself. The boat itself does not look like this at all. We want to have a net that has holes in it that are 1,5 cm by 1,5 cm. This way not all the plastic falls out of the net, through the holes itself. The net should be also 1.5 meters wide and with a length of 1 meters.

An agent needs to be able clear the whole area, and to be able to know which parts of the area it has covered. Therefore it needs understanding of the currents as well. The currents go with a speed of around 4 km/h which is 1,11 m/s. A GPS is used for knowing where it has been.

The robot needs two motors, so it can steer and move forward. The motors have to be powerful enough so the agent can reach the desired maximum speed of 2.5 m/s.

-The agent needs to have a width of 2 meters

-The agent needs to have a length of 2 meters

-The agent needs to have a height of 1,5 meters

The robot needs an ultrasound sensor on the front of the agent. This way it can look how far a unit of plastic is and this way it will know when to reel in the plastic units.

The robot needs GPS. This way it can see where it has been, where it should go and when it is connected with other agents, they also know where the other robots have been and where they are going.

The robot needs to be able to be controlled manually, when it is required too. For example, when the weather gets extreme and the waves get very high, so it will be dangerous the unit should be able to be steered back manually to a safe place.

An agent needs a battery life of (dependent of the area covered per robot. It would be a preference to have it fully powered by solar energy)

It needs a speed of more than 4 km/h. The current of the sea can be at the most 4 km/h so that means that if we want to make speed in those parts of the ocean, it has to go faster than that. 4km/h is about 1.11 m/s. If we want a decent speed at which we can pick up plastic, the robot has to go at least 2,5 m/s.

http://www.catamaranschool.nl/stromingengetijden.html

Its lifetime has to be 10 years. When an agent is build, it should be able to operate for quite some time and not break after a few years already.

An agent needs to be multi-hulled. One left of the container and one right of the container. It will look a bit like a catamaran. In the middle is the container and in front of that is the fishing net. On the back of each hull there is a motor. This way it can steer just like a tank with caterpillar tracks can do it. If it wants to go right, it just turns on the left motor.

Inspirations

Preference: The solar voyager is a solar powered boat that is currently being tested. It’s currently crossing the Atlantic Ocean. This project can server as inspiration to make our robots fully solar powered. http://www.solar-voyager.com/index.html

Roboat:

Roboat is the world’s first large-scale research that explores and tests the rich set of possibilities for autonomous systems on water. “Imagine a fleet of autonomous boats for the transportation of goods and people,” says Carlo Ratti, Professor at MIT and principal investigator in the Roboat-program. “Roboat offers enormous possibilities,” says Professor Arjan van Timmeren, AMS Institute’s Scientific Director, “as we’ll also be exploring environmental sensing. We could for instance do further research on underwater robots that can detect diseases at an early stage or use Roboats to rid the canals from floating waste and find a more efficient way to handle the 12,000 bicycles that end up in the city’s canals each year.” The first prototypes of Roboat will be visible in the waters of Amsterdam in 2017.

Model:

We also started to work on a model for the robot in NetLogo. It is not yet finished, however it is a good start.

http://www.ams-institute.org/roboat/

Sea Machines builds Autonomous Control & Remote Command Systems to enhance the operation of existing or new build marine vessels.

http://sea-machines.com/#technology

Appendix

Table

Sensors

The robot follows a certain path according to their sensors. The camera first percepts its area. When it does this, it also scans the sea. This can be done with a laser, that can recognize plastic and other things. When the camera percepts an unknown unit, it will first look at it and ask itself. Is this plastic or not? The plastic can be recognized by common shapes of plastic bottles for example. When it is not plastic it will communicate this with other agents, so that they won’t take a look at it and already know it is not plastic. Then it will sail further to another location and start over again. However when it is a plastic unit, it can use ultrasound. This sends soundwaves to the object and some waves will be reflected back. This can measure the distance between the object. Then it will navigate with the GPS to the plastic unit and pick it up. When it moves toward the plastic object, it also communicates with the other agents to let them know, it already takes care of that particular plastic unit. After it has picked up the plastic, it will put it in its storage. After this the cycle repeats itself. However, when the storage is full, it will go to a station to get rid of its content. It will also update the agents in the area that it is emptying its storage, so that they can also go to that area. There is a second moment, when it has to go back. If the battery is lower than 10/15 % it will also go back to the station, to reload. The Agent also has to communicate that with the other agents, so it can be replaced by an agent that has a full battery.

The AI will be a floating robot, that can take the plastic out of the sea. It will have a container at the middle in the back, where the picked-up plastic will be put. Here it will also be compressed. The plastic will be put into the container by a conveyor belt. The plastic will be shoved on the conveyor belt by 2 rotating arms, that will shove the plastic in a place where it will be put on the conveyor belt. On the 2 sides of the container, there will be 2 beaters. At the back of the 2 beaters there are is a motor for each beater. This way it can also steer, just like with caterpillar tracks. Under the conveyor belt is enough space for the electric parts that are needed to steer the robot. There is enough space for the camera and other sensors on the robot. The belt of the conveyor belt has to have some profile in it or very small spikes, so it has enough friction for the plastic unit not to fall off. There also is a small wall on each side of the belt, so the plastic unit doesn’t fall off that side.

Sensors:

1. Camera, so it can perceive its environment.

2. GPS, so it knows where it is.

3. Communicating device to communicate with other agents.

4. Ultrasound sensor, so it can measure the distance to different objects.

Process:

1. It percepts the plastic unit or it gets a signal that there is a plastic unit on its way.

2. It sails to the plastic unit.

3. It analyses the situation. Is it floating or is it stuck in coral for example.

4. Find a way to grab the plastic unit.

5. The arms reel in the plastic unit.

6. The plastic unit goes on the conveyor belt.

7. The conveyor belt puts the plastic unit in the container.

8. When there is a significant amount of plastic in the container it will compress it.

Important notes:

1. It is important to note here, that it will not compress every time it finds a plastic unit. It would be a waste of energy to do that with every plastic unit.

2. It is also important to note, that the conveyor belt is not active all the time. It Is only active when a sensor senses that a plastic unit is reeled in. Otherwise it would be a waste of energy.

Old Design:

The first design made had a few problems. First of the conveyer belts were fragile and would get a lot of pressure put on them when moving through the water against the flow direction. The outside ones were also held in place by relatively thin beams which would break easily. The second problem with the original design was the fact that the front area was big and was not hydrodynamic which would lead to a lot of water friction when moving through the water. And lastly most of the garbage which would be floating in the seas is two through three meters deep in the water. With all the limitations mentioned before, the agent would not be able to pick up all of this. Since the friction forces would get too large when trying to get garbage out of the water which is not floating at surface level.

New Design:

The new design picks up the garbage in the front and guides it to the surface without a large friction force. From there the blue conveyers will pick it up and guide it upwards. The conveyer belts will drop it of on the green panels which guide it further to the storage compartment. This way the design has less dangers in breaking, generates less friction and can pick up garbage which is located as deep as two to three meters. This will greatly reduce maintenance and power usage.

With the design of the robot here, it is a matter of making a strategy for the robots of how they are going to collect the garbage in a certain area. The strategy we thought of is presented down here, based on the design of the robot.

PICTURE

When we only look to the surface of water, a strategy is not required, because everything of the garbage can be collected when sailing every direction. However with the new design it is necessary to sail against the stream. The design has arms that will push the garbage to the surface when the stream goes against it. However when the robot will be sailing parallel to the coastline, it will take a lot of robots to clean the surface of a length x. every robot has to sail next to each other to collect everything. That’s why a zig zag strategy is chosen. Here it will be presumed that a surface of width y and length x meters has to be kept clean. When the tides change direction, the robot should be turning around. The tides change every 6 hours[1]. Further it is known that the current in the north sea is equal to 1,5 m/s. As a group we’ve chosen that the robot should go at least 3m/s. This means a robot can travel 64800 meters in 6 hours. Further it is presumed that the robot over the total y meters n times a zig zag pattern performs. This means it can be calculated with the following formula:

64800=2n*√(x^2+(y/2n)^2 )

When the y is varied between the 100 and 300 meters the length x can be calculated with the following formula:

x= √((64800/2n)^2-(y/2n)^2 )

In the table down here the different values of y can be given with an output x.

TABEL MOET EVEN GOED WORDEN INGEVOERD: Y n x 100 m 200 161,99 m 150 m 300 107,99 m 200 m 400 80.99 m 250 m 500 64,79 m 300 m 600 53,99 m !!!!!!!!!!!!!

We think that the last option with y = 300 meters and x = 54 meters the best. Every zig zag has a width of half a meter. Further it would seem good to put 10 robots behind each other with a distance z, for control if it should miss a piece. Also it is necessary to do this, for when the other robot is full. The amount of robots is based on the speed of the current. It is also possible to put more robots next to each other to clean more than 54 meters long . It seemed convenient to pick the z that the robot has a head start of half a zig zag on the robot behind it. Now is the question where we can put these robots. To perform this strategy without problems, the robots should be able to do their work undisturbed. Disturbances can be: Boats, Birds, Sailors, etc. Of course it is hard to take birds that want to rest on the boats into account. Measurements can be taken for this however we want to focus on human disturbances. To make this strategy work, it means that some parts of the coast in the North Sea have to be reserved for only the robots. Big ships and recreational boats should be able to easily go around these parts. The first division of the robots looked like this:

PICTURE

However these places are based on sources from the plastic. However if we want to let our robots look for garbage, they will be an obstacle for human traffic. The boats around it will disturb the strategy and the robots will disturb the traffic. The places are now adjusted to take this into account.

PICTURE

As you can see, we’ve used the sources from the plastic however we put them at the sides of those places. It is put on both sides, since the tide will turn the current. [1] http://www.ebvloedgetijde.nl/

Effects on the environment

The North Sea is a special area of high biodiversity and high productivity. Humans are using the sea for centuries for fishing and shipping. Because of this, some areas in the North Sea are disturbed, polluted and overfished. The bottom is regularly plowed by bottom trawl fishing, and is filled with cables and pipes. There are oil and gas platforms, sand is taken from the seabed and there’s being practiced by the military. In addition, there are more and new activities such as wind farms or possibly islands in the sea. This increases the pressure on this unique area and nature, which has already greatly changed, giving it no chance to recover.

Most harm to the environment is due to damaging/interfering with the seabed. This is mostly done by fishing, or to be more specific bottom trawling. In 2016, 14% of the dutch North Sea seabed was appointed as protected area. Effective protection means denying any activities, interfering with the seabed, so the seabed has time to recover. Our agent doesn’t go as deep as the seabed, so our agents won’t harm the seabed and will therefore be way less harmful to the environment as most fishing activities.

Protected areas, Natura 2000

Along the coast various Natura 2000 sites have been designated. These are the Noordzeekustzone, Voordelta, Vlakte van de Raan en Deltawateren. An overview can be found in the following pdf. https://www.noordzeeloket.nl/images/Mariene%20ecosysteem_4852.pdf