A smart street sweeper goes into service in Nanda West Street in Yangquan city, in Shanxi province, on Nov 4. [Photo/yqnews.com.cn]

The shape of things to come in the form of a smart street sweeper that sports an impressive swag of cutting-edge technology -- including radar and a camera -- was unveiled in an urban area of Yangquan city in Shanxi province on Nov 4.

To reduce the labor of sanitation workers and respond to the trend towards intelligent sanitation operations, Yangquan Zhonghuanjie City Environmental Service Co introduced the intelligent street sweeper. 

Officials said the auto-pilot street sweeper has greatly improved the city's cleaning efficiency. 

They said it can automatically undertake road cleaning and watering, sweeping 5,000 square meters per hour -- equivalent to the daily workload of six sanitation workers. 

The machine uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and driverless technology and supports 5G or 4G network transmissions, allowing it to complete cleaning operations on complex occasions. 

It will give a speech warning when reversing and stop to avoid pedestrians and vehicles when necessary. 

Gao Mingliang, assistant manager of the operations department of Yangquan Zhonghuanjie City Environmental Service Co, said that the intelligent street sweeper has reduced the burden for sanitation workers in the leaf-fall period. 

Apart from cleaning and collecting leaves, stones, cigarette butts and sundries, the sweeper can automatically turn on spray equipment to reduce dust when passing dusty areas. 

Currently, the machine has completed trial runs in Nanda West Street and Sunshine Plaza. The company will next arrange more sweepers in other streets.