This project, "Touqian River Waste AI Image Recognition System," led by Professor Neng-Fu Huang's team from the Department of Computer Science at National Tsing Hua University, aims to address the challenge of monitoring waste pollution in the Touqian River, Hsinchu's vital waterway. Facing the difficulty of capturing real-time, comprehensive data on river waste, the project's core content involves developing and deploying an advanced AI image recognition system.
The project began by installing real-time cameras at key points in the Touqian River basin (such as Matagudao) to automatically collect images. To train a high-accuracy recognition model, the team integrated a diverse image database, including: 1) Actual images captured by on-site cameras (over 500 collected); 2) Public open-source waste datasets like TrashNet (over 4,700 collected); 3) Samples photographed by the team (over 300 collected). Furthermore, the project introduced Generative AI technology to create images of specific or rare types of waste, significantly enhancing the model's training effectiveness and recognition breadth.
Project Results:
This project successfully constructed an automated, intelligent platform for monitoring river waste. Key results include:
- AI Recognition Core: An advanced AI recognition model was successfully trained and deployed. It can accurately identify various types of waste in images, such as plastic bottles, paper, and metal cans.
- Real-time Monitoring and Alert System: The system automatically analyzes camera-feed images 24/7. Upon detecting waste, it immediately triggers an alert mechanism (e.g., via Line Notify) to inform relevant authorities for cleanup, drastically reducing response time.
- Data Dashboard and Trend Analysis: The project developed a visual data dashboard. This platform not only displays real-time waste detection results but also features statistical analysis functions. It reveals waste hotspots, common types, and trend periods, providing a strong scientific basis for allocating cleaning resources and formulating pollution prevention strategies.