Amp Robotics aims to enhance safety with new partnership

Amp Robotics Corp., a Denver-based company that develops artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for the recycling industry, has announced a partnership with door-to-door recycling subscription service The Happy Beetle, also based in Denver. The companies are looking to improve detection and diversion of hazardous materials found in the waste stream.

According to Amp, its artificial neural network Amp Nueron encompasses the largest known real-world dataset of recyclables for machine learning. The company says it can classify more than 100 categories and characteristics of recyclables across single-stream recycling, e-scrap and construction and demolition debris.

With its partnership with The Happy Beetle, Amp aims to improve its identification of hazards before they cause damage to recycling infrastructure. When not properly recycled or disposed of, items like propane tanks, pressurized containers, batteries and other electronics can cause serious safety issues and damage processing equipment at facilities, the company says.

“Health and safety risks have been a longstanding challenge for the industry and our commitment to modernizing recycling involves mitigating these issues,” says Amanda Marrs, senior director of product at Amp. She adds that partnering with The Happy Beetle enables Amp to source samples of rare hazardous materials to train and improve its neural network, keeping it ahead of the potential dangers they pose to operating environments of municipal recovery facility customers.

Amp says its AI enables robotic sorting systems to identify individual pieces of material by learning logos, shapes and textures. The AI uses a camera that can handle different belts, lighting conditions, burden depths and more, and by using deep learning, the platform gets smarter and more accurate over time.

“As we aim to expand beyond the Denver metropolitan area, loaning potentially hazardous items collected from our subscribers enables Amp to better identify and remove these objects from recycling streams around the world, helping us work toward our mission of a more sustainable, circular economy on a truly global scale,” says Dave Kiefner, founder of The Happy Beetle.