A manifold intelligent decision system for fusion and benchmarking of deep waste-sorting models

Increases in population and prosperity are linked to a worldwide rise in garbage. The "classification" and "recycling" of solid waste is a crucial tactic for dealing with the waste problem. This paper presents a new twolayer intelligent decision system for waste sorting based on fused features of Deep Learning (DL) models as well as a selection of an optimal deep Waste-Sorting Model (WSM) based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). A dataset comprising 1451 samples of images of waste, distributed across four classes - cardboard (403), glass (501), metal (410), and general trash (137), was used for sorting. This study proposes a Multi-Fused Decision Matrix (MFDM) based on identified fusion score level rules, evaluation criteria, and deep fused waste-sorting models. Five fusion rules used in the sorting process and the evaluation perspectives into the MFDM are sum, weighted sum, product, maximum, and minimum rules. Additionally, each of entropy and Visekriterijumska Optimizacija i Kompromisno Resenje in Serbian (VIKOR) methods was used for weighting selected criteria as well as ranking deep WSMs. The highest accuracy rate of 98% was scored by ResNet50-GoogleNet- Inception based on the minimum rule. However, under the same rule, an insufficient accuracy rate of sorting was presented by ResNet50-GoogleNet-Xception. Since Qi = 0 for Inception-Xception, the final output based on MCDM methods indicates that the fused Inception-Xception model outperforms the other fused deep WSMs, which achieved the lowest values of Qi. Thus, Inception-Xception was chosen as the best deep waste-sorting model based on images of waste, multiple evaluation criteria, and different fusion perspectives. The mean and standard deviation metrics were both used to validate the selection findings objectively. The suggested approach can aid urban decisionmakers in prioritizing and choosing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-optimized optimal sorting model.