Introduction

Our evolutionary street sweeper is a sweeper that has three things in mind: efficiency, cost, and maintenance. This generation has been all about turning vehicles electric in order to bring maintenance and cost down while bringing efficiency up. The current sweepers in motion at this moment create chaos of dust in air. They create air pollution because of the gasoline and diesel. Sweepers on average go for around $150K even though they have weak vacuums. Our evolved seeks to improve these flaws for the better and we are starting with replacing the combustion engines with an electrical motor. We are including powerful vacuums in order to minimize the dust going in the air. 

Expanding on Need & Other Innovations

Street sweeping plays a vital role in water pollution prevention. However, while walking on the streets, current street sweepers create disruption and only displace extra garbage onto the sidewalks. Additionally, the side brushes are not always thorough in their cleaning; the debris or litter swarms around as the truck passes by. Smaller particles that the truck is not able to pick up are disruptive and bother pedestrians. As a result of littering, drainages can be clogged contributing to problems in the sewage system. We came up with an innovative version of street sweepers that is electrical so less fuels can be used. One commonly used sweeper is known as the Mechanical Broom. The logistics of it are basic, as the broom portions spin in circular motions pushing garbage into a conveyor belt that brings it into the truck. According to Scrubber Shop, “Its cleaning process often causes large debris to break into small-micron particles. Plus, mechanical brooms are made up of many moving parts. This makes them more expensive to repair.” Regenerative Air Sweepers and Vacuum Street Sweepers work similarly since they both use pressurized air to take in bits and pieces on the streets. But Regenerative Air has lower pollution emission (Scrubber Shop) because of the same air circulating throughout the sweeper. Below, we have constructed an idea of what an improved and more efficient street sweeper may look like. 

Technical Description

Exterior – Side

The leftmost portion of the sweeper consists of a driver’s cab. Pasted on the side of the cab is a door and a window. The top portion of the door consists of a window, while a handle protrudes from the lower half of the door. 

Bridging the driver’s cab and the dustbin is a water chamber that connects the two. On the other end of the water chamber is the dustbin chamber. The chamber has two levels: a bottom level making up most of the chamber and a shorter, smaller level protruding above.

Attached below the cab, chamber, and dustbin lies a system of pipes. The pipes attach the wheels and brooms to the sweeper. The vacuums extend from the bottom of the dustbin chamber. 

Exterior – Bottom 

The bottom of the sweeper consists of most of the cleaning mechanism. The leftmost part of the system of pipes located below the edge of the driver’s cab is an air knife. This portion is powered by the battery through the pipes, blowing a strong stream of air onto the ground below the sweeper. This pressurized air sends a blast toward the ground to blow particles off the ground for more effective cleaning. To the right of the air knife mechanism is a pair of motor brooms on either side of the sweeper that rotate along an axle attached to the pipes. Another motor broom of a smaller diameter is attached to the side of the pipe system. On the opposite side extends from the pipes an extension broom. This extension broom consists of a cylindrical sweeper that hangs resting on a motor handle. The motor handle has a rotating function that allows the cylindrical sweeper to rotate and mobilize the pieces of garbage on the ground. This broom is positioned in a way that is not horizontal but angled in a direction that counteracts the garbage pushed in from the small motor, thereby allowing for optimal removal of garbage or particles off the street.  To the right of the small motor broom and extension broom are the suction portion of the two pairs of vacuums.  

Interior – Side

Extending from the right side of the driver cab is the water chamber which holds two-hundred gallons of water. This water is dispensed through a water dispenser located at the bottom of the chamber. From this dispenser extends a pressurized water hose that goes through the inside part of the piping system attached beneath. The water exits the dispenser and flows into the water hose, where it eventually exits at a high pressure through nozzles. This allows water to spray the ground below at a force that flushes particles off from the ground as well as a better, more effective clean up from the sweeping of the motor brooms. 

To the right of the water chamber is the dustbin chamber. Flushed against the leftmost wall of the dustbin chamber is a battery pack. This battery provides the overall power for the function and operation of the sweeper and its cleaning mechanisms, without the use of diesel fuel or the production of loud engine noises. To the right of the battery pack are the ends of the pair of vacuums. The garbage and particles from the ground that are vacuumed and collected from the suction portion travel up the neck of the vacuum and out of the ends. Once exiting out the ends of the vacuums, the garbage falls and deposits onto the bottom of the dustbin where it settles until the load reaches a maximum weight. As the incoming air from the vacuum is sucked into the chamber, that air will float up towards a filter that traps and collects extra particles that are much smaller in size. This filter eventually can be taken out, cleaned, and re-used for future uses. The now filtered air continues its way up past the filter and out the top right side of the chamber where it goes through an opening that is sparsely draped with a small curtain. 

Process/Cost/Etc. 

We will be using a design similar and found in Teslas. With a weak exoskeleton but a strong endoskeleton which will be used to absorb any crashes. The battery will be used to make the vehicle be in equilibrium. We will put the battery more towards the front because the back will have a lot of weight from the vacuums and other machinery. We will be using materials similar to the cybertruck but it will be molded into a sweeper look. A base modelled cybertruck costs $40K for a single motor and $50K for a dual motor option. The upside of this will be that there will be no integration of automation. So no self-driving just yet but it will  reduce the costs of the vehicle. The cybertruck has a towing capacity of 7 and a half tons. We will be using the proprietary steel alloy much like the cybertruck for the exterior. Sweepers and other machinery should add up the costs to less then $75K.

Conclusion

Current vehicles in the street sweeper market are inefficient and cost-heavy. By using our modern electrical sweeper the government or private can save money while upgrading their product. Additionally, we have noticed there has been a modern trend for turning older mechanical models into electric models. We decided to take this route because it cut our costs from $150,000 to $75,000. Lastly, our prototype got rid of problems such as noise pollution, weak vacuum systems, and lower gas emissions due to it being electrical. During our brainstorming phase, we realized the sidewalks were littered as well. Therefore for the future, it would be interesting to create a compact prototype for sidewalks that is pedestrian friendly. 

 

APA Citations

Ernst, S. (2014, May 21). The State of Street Sweepers. © 2021 Government Fleet, Bobit Business Media. All Rights Reserved. https://www.government-fleet.com/154996/the-state-of-street-sweepers 

Types of Street Sweepers: Everything You Need to Know. (2020, September 16). ScrubberShop. https://www.scrubbershop.com/blog/types-of-street-sweepers/ 

BISSELL, T. (1940). 1941 CAR DESIGN TRENDS. SAE Transactions,35, 445-460D. Retrieved May 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44429142

(n.d.). Commercial Truck Trader. https://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/Sweeper/trucks-for-sale?category=Sweeper%7C2001720 

Forbidden. (n.d.). Bortek. https://www.bortekpwx.com/street-road-sweeping/?msclkid=0f246c042f031519a1d30c989a62d664&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PWX%20-%20Street%20Sweepers%20(New)&utm_term=%2Bstreet%20%2Bsweeper%20for%20sale&utm_content=Street%20Sweepers 

Hu, L. (2019, December 15). MTA Deploys First All-Electric Bus Fleet to 14th Street Busway. Spectrum News NY1. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2019/12/15/mta-deploys-first-all-electric-articulated-bus-fleet-to-14th-street-busway 

Elon Musk(2021, May 14) CyberTruck Cybertruck | Tesla

Sweeper Model retrieved from SketchUp Program 3D Warehouse

Presentation

Reflection

The purpose of this project was to efficiently collaborate and communicate with group members to innovate on an existing idea and present it through a verbal and written proposal. I joined my group members, Wen Sheng, Mark, and Wei, a few days later after the initial brainstorming. We were going to work with Neuralink, however due to the lack of research conducted we decided to scratch that idea off. Our communication was mostly through our Whatsapp group chat, we sent our ideas and checked in during our free times. Mark suggested working with ebikes because there was a growing popularity on this expensive product. Wen Sheng and I met up via Zoom to decide on a final idea, the other members joined during the last few minutes so we confirmed it with them. During our brainstorm session, Wen Sheng and I exchanged our ideas and conducted our own research on problems around ebikes that we would like to fix. Since we already had some research from Neuralink, but not enough, we decided to combine it with ebikes to create an efficient product with unique safety features. A few days later, other members expressed their uncertainty regarding combining neuralink and ebikes. Therefore, we started brainstorming again. Professor Uhl advised us to work with something we have experienced ourselves. Therefore, our final idea was innovating on a sweeper truck. From there, we split the work and came together to finalize the presentation and written proposal. I believe we spent a majority of the time thinking of an idea when we should have focused on perfecting the final. I believe splitting the work then asking others to check in and give feedback was helpful. One thing I would’ve done differently, would be to set our own deadlines and ask another new person to review our final work. The leader ended up doing more of the work, I believe it was split unevenly and communication was off sometimes. I learned that I should express my thoughts early on and encourage others to do the same. We were new and slightly confused about this, so we could’ve collaborated more than we did.