Take the trash out... to the edge. Creating a Smart Waste Bin based on 5G Multi-access Edge Computing

The fifth generation of mobile cellular networks (5G) will bring many improvements to our everyday lives. In particular, the interplay between 5G and IoT technologies will pave the way for the realisation of the Smart City concept, providing humans with better, safer and cleaner cities. In this work, we describe the prototype of a Smart Waste Bin, a connected trash bin that automatically sorts garbage with the help of Convolutional Neural Networks algorithms. The bin intelligence runs on the edge of the 5G network exploiting a Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) architecture, enabling a low-latency and energy efficient operation. We describe the design, the implementation and the experimental validation of the prototype, also discussing possible future application scenarios.