A research team from Punjab-based Lovely Professional University (LPU) has developed an interactive smart dustbin, ‘Ally’, for use in hospitals and medical centres.

“It is a contactless waste collection and disposal bin,” said a student member of the team. “Ally follows voice commands, moves on a predefined path inside a controlled environment, helps contactless collection of waste by opening its lid/ flip automatically, senses its current status or level and initiates the disposal procedure once the waste is filled to a predefined threshold and gets ready for reuse.”

“At times such as the present, there is a pressing need for frontline workers to work in a safer environment, and Ally is a smart contactless dustbin in that sense,” the student added.

The contactless bin has been conceptualised and developed under the aegis of the $1-million fund set up by LPU to combat the outbreak of Covid-19.

Prabin Kumar Das, Vanka Vinay Kumar and KM Vaishanvi Gupta were the student members of the team behind the development of Ally, along with professors Lovi Raj Gupta, Rajesh Singh and Anita Gehlot.

Scouting for partners

The team developed a prototype of the bin and conducted successful trials within the university, said Ashok Mittal, Chancellor, LPU, adding, “We are now looking for industrial partners to commercialise the product. The final product is expected to be ready for deployment in two months.”

The estimated cost of the prototype, which is 3 ft tall, 1.5 ft wide and weighs around 5 kg, is ₹20,000. LPU expects a 25 per cent drop in the price post commercialisation.

“Ally can be extremely relevant for picking waste from quarantined areas like rooms, without any human contact. The fact that it works via voice commands makes it easy for the hospital staff to use it,” said Mittal.

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