MIT’s CSAIL has created a new kind of Robot for sorting paper, plastic and metal objects. They achieved it by giving the robots a sense of touch. They named this recycling robot as RoCycle.
Sorting the objects during the recycling process is a tough task and it will impose a Safety risk to the workers. So, this Recycling Robot can help to address that issue.
This Robot Finger is having Pressure and Strain Sensors to identify the Objects. And, it can detect the objects by knowing their conductivity also. That means, it can differentiate the actual metal and other materials looking like metal.
The hands of the Robots are made out of custom auxetics. Auxetics are structures or materials that have a negative Poisson’s ratio. When stretched, they become thicker perpendicular to the applied force.
This Robot achieves 85 percent accuracy rate when attempting to identify stationary objects, and it drops to 63 percent when objects are moving in a conveyor belt-type situation. So, it can not be implemented immediately in industries. The researchers will be working to improve it further.
Currently Magnets are used to sort the metals, Air blower for Papers and people use computer vision technology also.
And, this Recycling Robot is slow
