TY - CHAP
T1 - A High-Speed Camel Dung Collection Machine
AU - Cubero, Samuel N.
AU - Badi, Mohammad
AU - Al Ali, Mohamed
AU - Alshehhi, Mohammed
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - In the UAE (United Arab Emirates), camels are widely used in racing events and for ‘desert safari’ adventures. The dung from such animals can be used as a fertilizer for plants and gardens, and is currently being collected manually using shovels and wheelbarrows—a task that is considered by many workers to be tiring, tedious and laborious, especially in a desert region where temperatures typically range from 40 to 50 degrees C during the daytime in summer months. This paper describes the mechanical design, analysis and control of a mobile electric-powered machine that was designed to collect most kinds of litter and animal dung at very high speed. The current prototype that was designed and built at Khalifa University is self-propelled using a built-in drive motor. Thus, it does not need a large, expensive, powerful vehicle or farm tractor to power it, tow it or steer it, like most conventional litter collection machines. Also, the machine’s steering direction and speed of movement can be manually controlled by an operator. Important design objectives and mechanical design details are explained, along with calculations, to show how the conveyor and drive motors were selected. Some of the serious technical problems encountered, and possible solutions, are also discussed. With some minor additions, this kind of machine can be modified for future use as a fully autonomous mobile robot or a semi-autonomous remote-controlled machine that can be used for litter collection for major beaches and grass-covered parks. It could also be used for manually or automatically collecting most kinds of large animal dung, on horse and camel ranches, and on open fields where bovines and dairy cows dwell.
AB - In the UAE (United Arab Emirates), camels are widely used in racing events and for ‘desert safari’ adventures. The dung from such animals can be used as a fertilizer for plants and gardens, and is currently being collected manually using shovels and wheelbarrows—a task that is considered by many workers to be tiring, tedious and laborious, especially in a desert region where temperatures typically range from 40 to 50 degrees C during the daytime in summer months. This paper describes the mechanical design, analysis and control of a mobile electric-powered machine that was designed to collect most kinds of litter and animal dung at very high speed. The current prototype that was designed and built at Khalifa University is self-propelled using a built-in drive motor. Thus, it does not need a large, expensive, powerful vehicle or farm tractor to power it, tow it or steer it, like most conventional litter collection machines. Also, the machine’s steering direction and speed of movement can be manually controlled by an operator. Important design objectives and mechanical design details are explained, along with calculations, to show how the conveyor and drive motors were selected. Some of the serious technical problems encountered, and possible solutions, are also discussed. With some minor additions, this kind of machine can be modified for future use as a fully autonomous mobile robot or a semi-autonomous remote-controlled machine that can be used for litter collection for major beaches and grass-covered parks. It could also be used for manually or automatically collecting most kinds of large animal dung, on horse and camel ranches, and on open fields where bovines and dairy cows dwell.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105007265288
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-43703-9_8
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-43703-9_8
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:105007265288
SN - 9783030437022
SP - 87
EP - 104
BT - Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice 4
ER -