ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, essential workers such as waste collection crews continued to provide services in the UK, but due to their small size, maintaining social distancing inside waste collection vehicle cabins is impossible. Ventilation in cabins of 11 vehicles operating in London was assessed by measuring air supply flow rates and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the driver's cabin, a proxy for exhaled breath. The indoor CO2 indicated that air quality in the cabins was mostly good throughout a working day. However, short episodes of high CO2 levels above 1500 ppm did occur, mainly at the beginning of a shift when driving towards the start of their collection routes. This data indicated that the ventilation systems on the vehicles were primarily recirculating air and the fresh air supply made up only 10-20 % of the total airflow. Following recommendations to partly open windows during shifts and to maintain ventilation systems, a second monitoring campaign was carried out, finding on average, an improvement in ventilation on board the vehicles. © 2022 17th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2022. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Solid waste management is one of the critical challenges seen everywhere, and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has only worsened the problems in the safe disposal of infectious waste. This paper outlines a design for a mobile robot that will intelligently identify, grasp, and collect a group of medical waste items using a six-degree of freedom (DoF) arm, You Only Look Once (YOLO) neural network, and a grasping algorithm. Various designs are generated before running simulations on the selected virtual model using Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo simulator. A lidar sensor is also used to map the robot's surroundings and navigate autonomously. The robot has good scope for waste collection in medical facilities, where it can help create a safer environment.