Your next garbageman could be a robot

Highly efficient wheeled robots could soon be hauling trash in a neighbourhood near you. Together with universities in Sweden and the US, carmaker Volvo is developing these robots, which will be able to pick up waste bins and chuck the trash into garbage trucks.

The project is called Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling, or ROAR, and while it may have some sanitation workers worried, it could soon become a boon for garbage truck drivers, who would simply need to pull up to the curb and let the robots do the rest.

Drivers will control the bots using an onboard OS and will not have to do any heavy lifting themselves. The refuse robots are part of a larger initiative by the auto company to create “a future with more automation,” Per-Lage Götvall, ROAR project leader, said.

To bring ROAR to life, Volvo recruited roboticists from Mälardalen University in Sweden. Students there will help build robots that can move discreetly and efficiently from house to house and that are strong enough to pick up heavy bins. Another Swedish institution, Chalmers University of Technology, will work on the overall operating system. And in the U.S., students at Pennsylvania State University’s Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute will design the system and control panel the truck drivers will need. The futuristic project is expected to be ready for testing by June 2016.

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