This Recycling Robot Can 'Feel' And Differentiate Between Materials

A few days ago, we have seen the latest invention of the famous MIT’s CSAIL lab. Their team brings us the RoCycle, actually a recycling robot. This latest MIT's work uses a series of complex sensors which allows it to tell the differences between various types of materials. The amazing ability gives it the task of sorting materials beforehand for an easier recycling process.

They have built RoCycle on the foundation of Rethink Robotics Baxter. This robotic system is designed with a built-in Teflon gripper and many sensors, so it allows the robot to determine the materials due to stiffness and size. However, the system is not really perfect yet.

At first, the team will use the gripper to train the “strain sensor” to feel the size of an object. Then, they use the double pressure sensor to measure the amount of force used to grasp the object. Thus they get the numbers - together with the calibration data on stiffness and size of the object with various material type. That is the data give the gripper the "feeling" of a specific material. Note that the robot also has conductive sensors so it can actually detect the metal object.

When it attempted to "feel" stationary objects, it had got pretty good marks of 85 percent accuracy rate. However, on a conveyor belt situation, it only got an accuracy rate of 63 percent. That is the real-life situation in which this robot will be deployed. So this product still has a lot of room for improvement.

The team at MIT is currently working on increasing the numbers of sensors for the robot. And it seems that this new sorting system will be used in tandem with the current system, the one that we use in the recycling plant that uses magnets to sort out metal bits. Last but not least, MIT’s CSAIL lab also want to partner up their robot with a vision system in the future.