An Ensemble Learning Approach towards Waste Segmentation in Cluttered Environment

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Jafar, Maimoona, Ali, Syed Imran, Saadat, Ahsan, Bilal, Muhammad, Khalid, Shah
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Jafar, Maimoona
Ali, Syed Imran
Saadat, Ahsan
Bilal, Muhammad
Khalid, Shah
author_facet Jafar, Maimoona
Ali, Syed Imran
Saadat, Ahsan
Bilal, Muhammad
Khalid, Shah
contents Environmental pollution is a critical global issue, with recycling emerging as one of the most viable solutions. This study focuses on waste segregation, a crucial step in recycling processes to obtain raw material. Recent advancements in computer vision have significantly contributed to waste classification and recognition. In waste segregation, segmentation masks are essential for robots to accurately localize and pick objects from conveyor belts. The complexity of real-world waste environments, characterized by deformed items without specific patterns and overlapping objects, further complicates waste segmentation tasks. This paper proposes an Ensemble Learning approach to improve segmentation accuracy by combining high performing segmentation models, U-Net and FPN, using a weighted average method. U-Net excels in capturing fine details and boundaries in segmentation tasks, while FPN effectively handles scale variation and context in complex environments, and their combined masks result in more precise predictions. The dataset used closely mimics real-life waste scenarios, and preprocessing techniques were applied to enhance feature learning for deep learning segmentation models. The ensemble model, referred to as EL-4, achieved an IoU value of 0.8306, an improvement over U-Net's 0.8065, and reduced Dice loss to 0.09019 from FPN's 0.1183. This study could contribute to the efficiency of waste sorting at Material Recovery Facility, facilitating better raw material acquisition for recycling with minimal human intervention and enhancing the overall throughput.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_13681
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Ensemble Learning Approach towards Waste Segmentation in Cluttered Environment
Jafar, Maimoona
Ali, Syed Imran
Saadat, Ahsan
Bilal, Muhammad
Khalid, Shah
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Environmental pollution is a critical global issue, with recycling emerging as one of the most viable solutions. This study focuses on waste segregation, a crucial step in recycling processes to obtain raw material. Recent advancements in computer vision have significantly contributed to waste classification and recognition. In waste segregation, segmentation masks are essential for robots to accurately localize and pick objects from conveyor belts. The complexity of real-world waste environments, characterized by deformed items without specific patterns and overlapping objects, further complicates waste segmentation tasks. This paper proposes an Ensemble Learning approach to improve segmentation accuracy by combining high performing segmentation models, U-Net and FPN, using a weighted average method. U-Net excels in capturing fine details and boundaries in segmentation tasks, while FPN effectively handles scale variation and context in complex environments, and their combined masks result in more precise predictions. The dataset used closely mimics real-life waste scenarios, and preprocessing techniques were applied to enhance feature learning for deep learning segmentation models. The ensemble model, referred to as EL-4, achieved an IoU value of 0.8306, an improvement over U-Net's 0.8065, and reduced Dice loss to 0.09019 from FPN's 0.1183. This study could contribute to the efficiency of waste sorting at Material Recovery Facility, facilitating better raw material acquisition for recycling with minimal human intervention and enhancing the overall throughput.
title An Ensemble Learning Approach towards Waste Segmentation in Cluttered Environment
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.13681