Paper Title
Towards A Smart Trash Bin: Using Monte Carlo Simulation For Automatic Detection of A Thrown Object’s Landing Spot

Abstract
The purpose of our paper is to examine whether an automatic garbage collector can be implemented with the ability to “catch” objects thrown in the air in its vicinity with a high probability of success. In this work we utilize Monte Carlo methods to generate draws from a sequence of probability distributions. These distributions satisfy a nonlinear evolution equation describing the motion of a hand thrown object, traveling through space under the effect of gravitational force and of air resistance. We have implemented a software module that generates different initial conditions of the motion, calculates the object trajectory and simulates it. We have also implemented another two software modules: one that acquires images of the motion and one that tracks the object as it moves and predicts its landing spot. This latter module uses extended Kalman filter to do the tracking task. Additionally, polynomial regression is tested for comparison. We have completed dozens of simulations of an object throw with different initial conditions and compared the methods. Our conclusions are given in the end of the paper. Keywords- Monte Carlo Simulation, Extended Kalman Filter, Object Tracking, Landing Spot Prediction.