Industry
Professional Services
Company Size
50-150
Product
Dynamsoft Barcode Reader
Development Time
Two weeks
Key Requirements
- Read QR code on the trash bag machines
- Increase QR code read success rate on trash bags
Qing Song Huan Pin Improves Trash Disposal Efficiency with Dynamsoft DBR
Hangzhou Qing Song Huan Pin Technology Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as QSHP) is a science and technology company specializing in R&D, investment, construction, and operation of urban environmental protection and intelligent waste sorting system. The company provides products such as smart garbage bag dispensers, credit redeem machines, recycle collection vehicles, infrastructure construction services, garbage sorting promoters, and inspectors.
The Need
QSHP offers an app for consumers as well as garbage inspectors. Consumers sort garbage into different bags. Inspectors then open these bags or scan these bags with a machine to ensure the garbage matches the bag. Machines scan the bags to decide the content of the bag, similar to how luggage is scanned and sorted in airports. Consumers can earn credits if their garbage is classified in the correct bag. These credits can be redeemed for simple items from a dispensary machine such as shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, and so on.
The app currently serves nearly 400,000 homes and has nearly 100,000 registered users. Part of the app’s core functionality is to allow users to scan QR codes. To achieve this, it uses Dynamsoft Barcode Reader SDK, which is integrated into the following two modules.
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Scan function
After a user downloads the QSHP app, they can use the Scan function to scan the QR code on the smart garbage bag dispenser and receive the garbage bag free of charge from the opening at the bottom of the machine. There is a QR code printed on the garbage bag, which the background server associates with the user login ID.
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Inspection function
The garbage inspectors in the community regularly check the garbage disposal box. After logging in to the QSHP app, the inspector scans the QR code on the garbage bag to locate the household information, and scores the garbage classification.
The Challenges
Previously, QSHP used an open source SDK, but the recognition was not ideal, especially considering the many challenges users and inspectors encounter during regular use. The company then tried several other commercial SDKs on the market, but were not satisfied with the recognition rate. Some of the challenges unique to this app were:
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Since the machine is outdoors and has a certain height, it’s likely to cause problems such as poor lighting, scanning/deflection, and out-of-focus images.
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The government has special regulations on the color of the garbage bag and the ink for printing the two-dimensional code. In many cases, the color contrast of the two is not obvious enough. In other cases, the QR code is printed on two different background colors.
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Filling a garbage bag with trash often deforms the two-dimensional code making it difficult to read.
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During delivery, the garbage bag may become contaminated or damaged in the QR code area.
Solution and Results
Upon further research into other barcode reader solutions, QSHP chose Dynamsoft Barcode Reader SDK. Once implemented into their app, it drastically improved the recognition, in particular with these common problematic scenarios and difficult-to-read barcodes.
Dynamsoft’s DBR SDK proved to be successful where the other SDKs fell short by consistently delivering faster recognition. Based on comprehensive tests, recognition speed increased by approximately 25%. More importantly, the recognition rate showed significant improvement as well.
This is due to the Dynamsoft SDK's range of special image processing algorithms for low quality QR codes, including expansion, dilution, adaptive binarization algorithms, and wrinkle correction.
This greatly improves the user experience when the community occupants interact with the garbage bag dispenser. The efficiency of the inspectors has also improved significantly.
About Dynamsoft Barcode Reader SDK
Dynamsoft Barcode Reader SDK enables you to efficiently embed barcode recognition in your web, desktop, or mobile app with a few lines of code. With the Barcode Reader SDK, you can decode barcodes from a variety of image file formats (such as BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, single and multi-page TIFF, and PDF), cameras, or DIB formats acquired from scanners.