Each electric vehicle battery is unique and, therefore, “its dismantling requires adaptation continuous which involves specific parameter adjustments and the use of advanced technologies such as artificial vision to ensure precise and non-destructive disassembly, allowing the efficient recovery of the materials they contain,” explains Eric Sunday, researcher at Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation unit.
The technology center Eurecat developed, within the framework of the European project Free4Libthe robot demonstrator, or as its creators call it “a collaborative robotic solution for advanced dismantling and recycling of electric vehicle batteries.”
The aim of the development is to improve the efficiency and safety of the process, reduce operating costs, ensure the extraction of valuable materials from the piles and minimize their environmental impact.
Independent and scalable solution
As Néstor García, head of the robotic handling line at Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation Unit, explains, “we are developing a Battery type independent, scalable and reusable solution in other scenarios without the need for predefined information, thanks to automatic online programming.
The collaborative robotics solution implemented will allow the operator to perform tasks with higher added value in the same workspace as the robotto which a industrial screwdriver to use the different tools you need at each stage of disassembly.
In this perspective, the robot can identify the position of screws using an onboard depth camera and detects them using training performed with the You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm.
Behavior trees
For the task of manipulating bulky objectsLike the battery cover, a custom tool was made with multiple foam clips that conform to any surface, allowing for a secure grip.
Additionally, the robot was mounted on an external linear axis, allowing it to move along the entire battery during a complete and efficient disassembly. In addition, to plan and execute the trajectories, Eurecat has implemented a common manipulator of the linear axis and the robot.
Finally, the development of the behavior of the robot that removes the battery was carried out using Behavior treea library developed at the technology center and designed to create behavior trees for planning tasks of robotic systems.
As part of the Free4Lib project, Eurecat analyzed the different parts of the process to select the tasks that presented a greater risk of causing harm or injury to operators and involved more repetitive tasks, to automate them.
Human-robot collaboration
The Free4Lib project seeks to address the growing need to develop efficient and safe processes for the dismantling and classification of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) out of use, due to the exponential increase in demand in various sectors, as well as the identification of opportunities to improve the efficiency and safety of these processes through human-robot collaboration.
More specifically, this initiative aims to develop six sustainable, innovative and efficient processes for the rRecycle end-of-life batteriessuch as dismantling, pre-treatment and four material recovery processes.
The project consortium Free4Lib Feasible recovery of critical raw materials through a novel circular ecosystem for a cross-value chain of lithium-ion batteries in Europecoordinated by CARTIF, has the mission funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.
