(ref. BAP-2023-536)
Last modification : Friday, August 18, 2023
The KU Leuven research group on Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) of the Department of Mechanical Engineering has, in close cooperation with their industrial partners, acquired significant experience in re- and demanufacturing, or in other words the dismantling of products into their components and the sorting of materials for the purpose of reuse, repair, repurposing, remanufacturing and recycling. The KU Leuven has recently established the Re- and Demanufacturing Lab in Heverlee to support these research activities. The ten-headed team working in this lab has in the framework of various national and international projects developed and installed various setups in this lab with state-of-the-art automation, spectroscopic, computer vision and ICT equipment for material characterization, robotic sorting and robotic demanufacturing. The group's ambition is to further develop its lab and infrastructure, together with the related software and expertise in this field. This to support system integrators and reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling companies in the development of the next generation of more sustainable processes. In addition, it is the objective to support original equipment manufacturers in developing more sustainable products in the ongoing transition towards a more circular economy. Description of the research topic Within the Horizon European Reclaim project (AI-powered Robotic Material Recovery in a Box, https: // reclaim- box.eu/ ) KU Leuven will collaborate with the organizations Forth, University of Malta, Hellenic Recovery Recycling Cooperation (HRRC), IRIS, Robenzo, Aimplas, AXIA, ISWA and ION. In this project KU Leuven will contribute to increasing the flexibility and sorting efficiency of the pilot robotic sorting line by facilitating a quick and easy customization to respond to changes in the material supply and waste characteristics. For this purpose, different methods to characterize the geometry of the waste stream based on the images of the computer vision system will be explored and the suitability of different grippers considering these characteristics will be mapped. Considering that multiple robots will cooperate for sorting, we want to investigate methods to define the optimal (hybrid) gripper designs and combination of grippers to be used. In this way, the objective is to implement collaborative behaviors for multi-robot/multi-gripper sorting systems. For this the distribution of roles and tasks among the robots in a way that maximizes global efficiency and balances the work and wear of the different grippers and robots is targeted. You will be involved in the development and evaluation of sorting performances with the available sorting lab setup and pilot setup under development and the integration of the different system components throughout the project in close cooperation with the experienced project partners.
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ProjectFor more information please contact Prof. dr. Jef Peeters, tel.: +32 16 32 25 69, mail: [email protected].
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