AI-based Sorting of Potentially Hazardous Materials with a Robot from a Conveyor | Project ROBDEKON
Channel: FZIchannel
Date: 2024-03-12

The ROBDEKON robotics competence center is dedicated to the development of robotic systems for hazardous environments that pose a potential risk to humans. As part of the consortium, the FZI Research Center for Information Technology developed robotic systems, technologies, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods that can be used to handle hazardous materials – for example, to sort potentially dangerous used batteries for recycling. 
 
The video was created in project phase 1 and shows a use case developed at the FZI: the AI-based sorting of hazardous objects on a conveyor belt. Batteries are dropped on the conveyor belt, detected, and tracked by AI. The AI-based sorting approach is able to learn new battery types with just a few images and can, therefore, be easily retrained. The camera data is combined with 2D lidar data to robustly distinguish between similar batteries of different sizes. The respective batteries are sorted by a robotic arm to support the recycling and recovery of valuable or potentially hazardous materials. This way, the contact between humans and dangerous objects is minimal.
 
Watch our other videos to see for yourself what solutions the FZI comes up with – to solve the critical challenges of dangerous environments! Let us know what you think about our robot team in the comments. 
 
Further information on ROBDEKON: https://robdekon.de/en