Report on In-Plant-Training

“Plastic Sorter for Plastic Waste Recycling using NIRs”

[ 02-DEC-2010 to 02-JAN-2011 ]

Submitted By

S.V.Kaushik
B.E. - Computer Science and Engineering
(2008-2012)
Shree Motilal Kanhaiyalal Fomra Institute of Technology,
Old Mahabalipuram Road, Thaiyur, Chengalpet Taluk.
Pin: 603103.

Under the guidance of

A.S.V.Sharma, Scientist-in-charge
&
Scientist V.Venkataraman

Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute, Chennai Centre,

CSIR Complex, Taramani, Chennai.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I sincerely thank Dr.A.S.V.Sharma, Scientist-In-Charge, CEERI,

Chennai for having given me an opportunity to be involved in this
project. His inspiring guidance enabled me to give my best
performance during my in-plant training.

I wholeheartedly thank Scientist Mr.V.Venkataraman (CEERI) and

his team members of the sensor department for their great support
in providing the required knowledge base for the training. He was
very friendly and gave us good guidance throughout my in-plant
training. His valuable tips at the right time enabled me to progress
well in the right direction.

It is with immense pleasure I express my wholehearted thanks to

my beloved Correspondent Shri Shri Kumar Fomra, Director
Dr.Pundarikanthan and Principal Dr.John Stephen, of SMK
Fomra Institute of Technology for their inspiring guidance and
continuing encouragement. My heartfelt thanks are to my
Head-of-Department Mr.S.Bharathi Raja for his moral support.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Description Page No.

1. Introduction 1
2. Software Description 1
3. Usage Specification:
(i) Launching the application 1
(ii) Modes of operation: 2
3
a. Administrator Mode
b. Operator Mode 4-5

4, Prerequisites 6

7 Bibliography 7
 Plastic Sorter for Plastic Waste Recycling

INTRODUCTION:
Plastics are widely used non-biodegradable materials. Instead of throwing away the
existing plastics and manufacturing them again, we recycle them. In existing hand-sorting
techniques, the rate at which plastics are sorted is far lesser when compared to automated
plastics sorting systems. Such automated systems use NIR spectrum to categorize
plastics. The software required to process the process the data from spectrometer was
developed using C++.

SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION:
The application titled “Plastic Sorter - CEERI” was developed using Visual C++ 6.0. It
uses HTML and JavaScript to provide rich user interface, while serial communication
and data processing part is done in C++ to achieve higher performance.

USAGE SPECIFICATION:
Before starting the application, make sure that:
(i) The spectrometer is switched ON.
(ii) The Motor is powered ON.
(iii) The Lamps are powered ON.

A shortcut to the application exists on Desktop as shown below:

Use this to start the application. Once the application starts, it will try to initialize the
spectrometer.
If it could not properly initialize the spectrometer within 5 seconds of startup, the
application will show an error message as shown in Fig (1), and terminate abruptly when
the OK button is pressed. It is to be noted that switching on the spectrometer in this 5 sec
interval will not work.
.

Fig (1)

1
If successful, login screen as shown in Fig (2) is displayed.

Fig (2)

There are two modes of operations.

1) Administrator Mode. in which the user can:

i. Take Dark and Reference Readings.
ii. Test Motors, Lamp Source, Air Jet.

2) Operator Mode, in which the user can:

i. Start the sorting process.
ii. Pause/Resume if required.
iii. Reset Counters.

On entering any of these modes, the CSIR logo will smoothly fade off to provide better
readability and keep the screen clean.

2
Administrator Mode:

Fig (3)

Fig (3) is a screenshot taken in Administrator Mode.

The “Dark” button may be used to take Dark Readings. A dialog asks for confirmation
before the Dark values are actually read and stored (so that an accidental press of the
button will not overwrite the existing Dark Readings).

Similarly, the “Reference” button may be used to take Reference Readings. Again, a
dialog appears asking the administrator to confirm his/her action.

It is to be noted that the “Reference” button will be enabled only if the Lamp Source is
turned on. However, when the lamp source is turned on, the “Dark” button gets disabled.
Obviously, it is impossible to have both the “Dark” and “Reference” buttons enabled at
the same time.

The three checkboxes provided in this screen can be used to test the three devices
individually.

Finally, the administrator can go back to the login screen by clicking on the “Logout”
button. There is no confirmation asked before the administrator logs out.

3
Operator Mode:

Fig (4)

Fig (4) shows how the screen looks when the operator logs in.

First of all, the material which we wish to segregate is to be selected using the “Material
to sort” dropdown menu [as shown in Fig (4)]. By default, it is PET.

The “Start” button is to be used to start the sorting process. The Lamps and Motors will
be turned on automatically by the software. Please wait for the motor to pickup its full
speed before feeding the system with plastics.

The “Pause” button can be used to temporarily suspend the process of sorting. When the
system is paused, the software will not take input from the spectrometer even when the
sensor circuit indicates that a plastic article is placed under the spectrometer. However,
certain pending operations are not affected, that is even if the system is paused after the
plastic has passed through the spectrometer and hasn’t reached the airjet-nozzle; the
process of segregation of that plastic article remains unaffected.

Moreover, motor and lamps are turned off by the software as a power saving measure.

4
 Fig (5)

Fig (5) is a screenshot taken when the system is paused.

The “Pause” button will change its caption to “Resume”, which can be clicked to resume
the process of sorting. The software will once again turn on the motor and lamps.

The “Stop and Reset” button can be used to stop the process of sorting. Several buffers
are cleared from memory. All counters are reset after completion of pending operations,
if any. But the user will see only the old values on screen until he restarts the sorting
process by clicking the “Start” button (which gives him enough time to note down the
number of plastics of each type).

On restarting the sorting process, the Dark readings, Reference readings and the 250
sample readings are reread from corresponding files.

At any point of time, if the user tries to close the application, a dialog asks the user to
confirm his action.

5
PREREQUISITES:

1. JavaScript needs to be enabled in Internet Options as the user interface

heavily relies on JavaScript and HTML.
2. inpout32.dll and NIR1_7B.DLL must be present in %windir%\system32
3. The directory _50_Readings must be present in the application’s working
directory.
4. The following files must also be present in application’s working directory:
a. CUSTOM_DARK.XLS
b. CUSTOM_REF.XLS
c. OLD_DARK.XLS
d. OLD_REF.XLS
However, CUSTOM_DARK.XLS and CUSTOM_REF.XLS can be created in
administrator mode.

6
IDR_HTML1 (Resource) 7 of 7

"othersStyle">Others</font></td>
298 <td height="100px" width="10%"><font id="others-colon" class=
"othersStyle">:</font></td>
299 <td height="100px" width="36%" style="text-align: right"><font id=
"others-count" class="othersStyle">0</font></td>
300 </tr>
301 SAMPLE SOURCE ONLY
302 </table>
303 </div>
304 <div id="admin-pane" style="display:none;">
305
306 <div style="float: right">
307 <input class="myButton" type="button" value="Logout" id="logout-button" onclick=
"Logout()">
308 </div>
309
310 <table border="0" style="margin-left: 200px">
311 <tr><td>
312 <p style="font-size: 70px; font-weight: bold">Calibration:</p>
313 <input class="myButton" style="margin-left: 0px" type="button" value="Dark"
id="dark-button" onclick="Inform('dark')" disabled />
314 <input class="myButton" type="button" value="Reference" id="ref-button"
onclick="Inform('ref')" disabled />
315 <p style="font-size: 70px; padding-top: 200px; font-weight: bold">Test
Devices:</p><br>
316 <input type="checkbox" id="lamp-box" ondoubleclick=
"this.checked=(!(this.checked)); conditionChanged()" onclick=
"conditionChanged()" ><label for="lamp-box"><font class="generalText">Lamp
Source</font></label><br>
317 <input type="checkbox" id="motor-box" ondoubleclick=
"this.checked=(!(this.checked)); conditionChanged()" onclick=
"conditionChanged()"><label for="motor-box"><font class="generalText">Motor
</font></label><br>
318 <input type="checkbox" id="jet-box" ondoubleclick=
"this.checked=(!(this.checked)); conditionChanged()" onclick=
"conditionChanged()"><label for="jet-box"><font class="generalText">Air Jet
</font></label><br>
319 </td></tr>
320 </table>
321 </div>
322 </body>
323 </html>

Core application's source code cannot be uploaded online

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Using the WebBrowser control, simplified.
By Gary R. Wheeler | 11 Apr 2003
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/simplebrowserformfc.aspx

JavaScript call from C++

By Eugene Khodakovsky | 28 May 2002
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/COM/jscalls.aspx

http://www.functionx.com/visualc

http://www.w3schools.com/