Fanuc enters waste management industry with new sorting robot

Fanuc, an international robotics company with global headquarters based in Japan, has announced its first robotic sorting machine for the waste management industry. The company developed the machine to assist countries such as the United Kingdom in meeting their recycling goals.

The company partnered with Recycleye, a tech start-up company based in London, to develop Recycleye Robotics. The machine can identify, sort and pick materials at a rate of 55 picks per minute compared with 40 to 45 picks by humans, Recycleye spokesperson Ashika Patel says.

“The cameras used by Recycleye are just like the cameras on the back of a typical phone to identify the waste objects,” Patel says. “The device will capture around 60 images per second, and that data is transported to the cloud, which then allows us to provide high-level and actionable insights to the client. We can provide data to the client such as trend analysis and plant downtime.”

The machine has several applications, including negative sorting. It can sort materials like polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyethylene/polypropylene (PE/PP), aluminum and paper.

Another aspect that Fanuc says stands out from other automatic pickers is user accessibility. Recycleye Robotics weighs 75 percent less than any existing robotic waste picker currently in the market. The machine also is capable of being plugged in without retrofitting, making it ready to use more quickly.

Recycleye Robotics is powered by Recycleye Vision, an artificial intelligence (AI) vision system. Recycleye Vision works to constantly train and learn new object detection, enabling the robotic waste picking system to adapt to changing material stream composition without any need for manual upgrades.

“Recycleye’s intelligent robotic picker is creating long-term value for our clients, working consistently to increase throughput and reduce the cost of recycling,” Yann Glauser, lead hardware engineer at Recycleye, says. “Our partnership with Fanuc is leveraging world-leading expertise in robotic solutions to develop the most effective automated solution for waste sorting.”  

The modular robotic picking system has been deployed at two U.K. material recovery facilities on multiple plastic and paper sorting lines. Recycleye says deployments in France are scheduled for later this year.

FANUC Corp. specializes in factory automation for CNC control systems, robots and production machinery. In addition to its headquarters in Japan, the company has a subsidiary, Fanuc UK Ltd., based in Coventry, England, in addition to other subsidiary locations.

Recycleye says it has flexible financing for those interested in using its product. They have options to buy or lease with a two-year warranty.

Those interested in learning more about Recycleye Robotics can email hello@recycleye.com.