Chandigarh University Patents Solar Garbage Robot
In June 2026 the Patent Office of the Government of India granted a patent titled "Garbage Collection System and Method Thereof" to a team of researchers from Chandigarh University (CU). The inventors comprise Prof (Dr) Nitin Sharma of the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, former professor Dr Paras Chawla, and three ECE students – Hemant Kalia, Jayant Pathak and Ritesh Sharma.
The patented invention is a solar‑powered mobile robotic system that performs touch‑free garbage collection, automatic segregation into wet and dry streams, compression, monitoring, and transport to a designated dumping site without human intervention. Key technical features include:
- A housing mounted on 360‑degree wheels for omnidirectional movement.
- Vision sensors to detect objects ahead and differentiate garbage from obstacles.
- A robotic arm that picks up identified waste.
- Capacitive sensors that classify collected waste as wet or dry, directing it to the appropriate chamber.
- Compressor units in each chamber, monitored by pressure sensors, to reduce volume and increase storage capacity.
- Smoke sensors for safety, a GPS module for location tracking, and an Arduino microcontroller that coordinates all operations.
- A fingerprint lock for system unlocking, solar panels that generate electricity and charge an onboard battery, and a light sensor that optimises panel orientation toward sunlight.
Prof Sharma highlighted India’s growing municipal solid‑waste challenges, noting that labour‑intensive collection and manual segregation are costly, time‑consuming and hazardous to workers. He emphasized that the robot’s ability to segregate waste at source, compress it, and generate its own renewable power can lower transport and treatment expenses while improving worker safety.
Deepinder Singh Sandhu, Senior Managing Director of Chandigarh University, praised the achievement as evidence of the university’s strong research and innovation ecosystem. He cited CU’s overall intellectual‑property portfolio: more than 6,100 patents filed, 5,800 published, and 260 granted, making CU the top single institution in India for patent filings. The university boasts 44 faculty members listed among Stanford‑Elsevier’s world’s top 2 % scientists, over 25,000 scholarly documents, and approximately 153,000 Scopus citations.
CU is recognised as a Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (SIRO) by the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. To sustain its research momentum, the university allocates Rs 15 crore annually to research activities, operates 60 research centres and 15 centres of excellence, and oversees 67 corporate‑government funded projects valued at Rs 90 crore.
The institution is an autonomous, NAAC‑A+ graded university, QS‑world ranked, approved by the UGC, and located near Chandigarh in Punjab. It offers more than 109 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across engineering, management, pharmacy, law, architecture, journalism, animation, hotel management, commerce and other fields, and has been honoured as “The University with Best Placements” by WCRC.
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