A Novel Intelligent Garbage Classification System Based on Deep Learning and an Embedded Linux System

The dramatic increase in the amount of garbage and complex diversity of the materials in the garbage bring serious environmental pollution problems and wastes resources. Recycling reduces waste but manual pipeline waste sorting involves a harsh working environment at high labor intensity with low sorting efficiency. In our paper, a novel intelligent garbage classification system based on deep learning and an embedded Linux system is proposed. The system is divided into three parts. First, a Raspberry Pi 4B is utilized as the master board for the hardware system. The peripherals of the system consist of a touch panel, sensors, a 2-DOF (degree of freedom) servo, and a camera. Second, a new GNet model for garbage classification based on transfer learning and the improved MobileNetV3 model is proposed. Third, a GUI based on Python and QT is employed to build a human-computer interaction system to facilitate system manipulation and observation. A series of garbage classification experiments on the Huawei Garbage Classification Challenge Cup dataset were conducted. The proposed classification system’s prediction accuracy was 92.62% at 0.63 s efficiency. The experimental results in this paper demonstrate that the proposed intelligent garbage classification system delivers high performance both in terms of accuracy and efficiency.