Roadside Litter Collecting Apparatus

Abstract

A roadside litter collecting apparatus has a frame or chassis upon which is mounted a pneumatic litter pick-up apparatus which includes a flexible suction pipe for delivery of litter contaminated roadside material to a settlement tank. The litter contaminated roadside material is discharged from the settlement tank and is spread out on a sorting conveyor. A camera mounted above the sorting conveyor is operable to detect litter within the litter contaminated roadside material on the sorting conveyor and an associated pick-up arm is operable in response to the camera to grab litter detected by the camera and deposit the litter into a litter bin located beneath the sorting conveyor. The cleaned roadside material is returned to the roadside, and at the same time another batch of litter contaminated roadside material is discharged from the settlement tank onto the sorting conveyor to repeat the sorting process.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.