IoT-Based Framework for Smart Waste Monitoring and Control System: A Case Study for Smart Cities

Abstract

Environmental sanitation is very essential for healthy living. In our daily livelihood, garbage bins are usually kept without proper monitoring until they are filled to the point of overflowing onto the surroundings and spilling out, resulting in environmental pollution, which has serious health-related issues to human beings and the environment. For smart cities, garbage bins need to be monitored and controlled to ensure a healthy and clean environment. In the present technological advancement, real-time monitoring and control of waste disposal is a challenging area that needs urgent attention by the research community. The traditional approach of monitoring waste in garbage bins placed in strategic locations is a very tedious and inefficient way that consumes time, human effort, and cost, and this is also not in agreement with smart city requirements. This research paper presents the design and implementation of an internet of things (IoT) based Arduino microcontroller working with the ultrasonic sensors that detects the level of waste in the garbage bin placed in garbage locations and constantly at regular intervals display the status information as “filled”, “half-filled”, or “empty” on an LCD screen, as well as send the content level information at those intervals to a central web-server system that displays the garbage bin levels graphically. This is achieved using a microcontroller, a Wi-Fi module, and ultrasonic sensors. The programming of the Arduino Uno microcontroller was done with an Arduino IDE and embedded C programming language. The communication with the web server was done using the hypertext preprocessor PHP scripting programming language. The prototype was designed and simulated using Proteus 8.0 professional simulation software. This process helps to automate garbage bin monitoring and control. Experimental results demonstrate a promising solution to waste management and control. A number of testing runs were performed to evaluate the device workability in real situations. The measured distances from the garbage bins were transmitted to a website; this web page performs analytic and visualization and displays a bar chart showing the levels of the garbage waste, time, and location in real time for viewing. The proposed prototype is an innovative system that will help to keep the smart cities clean and tidy using ultrasonic sensors.