Design, Technical Development, and Evaluation of an Autonomous Compost Turner: An Approach towards Smart Composting

Abstract

In a sustainable circular economy, the composting of organic waste plays an essential role. This paper presents the design and technical development of a smart and self-driving compost turner. The architecture of the hardware, including the sensor setup, navigation module, and control module, is presented. Furthermore, the methodological development using model-based systems engineering of the architecture of concepts, models, and their subsequent software integration in ROS is discussed. The validation and verification of the overall system are carried out in an industrial environment using three scenarios. The capabilities of the compost turner are demonstrated by requiring it to autonomously follow pre-defined trajectories at the composting plant and perform required composting tasks. The results prove that the autonomous compost turner can perform the required activities. In addition to autonomous driving, the compost turner is capable of intelligent processing of the compost data and of transferring, visualizing, and storing them in a cloud server. The overall system of the intelligent, autonomous compost turner can provide essential leverage for improving sustainability efforts, thus contributing substantially to an environmentally friendly and sustainable future.