There are currently two primary methods of cleaning beaches, either people do it by hand or expensive tractors rake the entire beach for garbage. The first solution is immensely time-consuming and is highly impractical for larger beaches which can be miles long. The latter solution, though less time consuming, still takes many hours and is additionally very expensive as the cleaning equipment costs anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Additionally, the latter solution has been shown to be very bad for the biome of the raked beach. This is an industry ripe for automation
The Cobot team aims to create an autonomous beach cleaner that can pick up litter lying on the dry sand of the beach. The beach cleaning system uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) combination to clean the beach with commands originating from the central server.