NRI/Collaborative Research: Robotic Disassembly of High-Precision Electronic Devices

NRI/合作研究：高精度电子设备的机器人拆卸

• 批准号: 2422640
• 负责人: Minghui Zheng
• 金额: $ 56.49万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2422640&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NRI; Collaborative; Research; Robotic; Disassembly

The National Robotics Initiative (NRI) project addresses the increasing quantity of discarded high-precision electronics such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops. Current recycling methods rely on shredding after battery removal, due to high labor costs for disassembly. As a result, many valuable components are buried in landfills and not recycled. Disassembly, the first step of recycling, is more complex than assembly since there is much more variability in product type and, as a result, remanufacturing is usually not profitable. This award supports research to provide the fundamental understanding needed for the development of a novel robotic system that can effectively perform high-precision disassembly operations and make them practically and economically viable. The work has potential to mitigate labor shortages in recycling industry, reduce electronics waste, and revolutionize the remanufacturing of high-precision electronics. The research involves several disciplines including 3D sensing, deep learning, and robotics. The multidisciplinary research will be integrated into a series of educational and outreach activities which will increase the participation of underrepresented groups in research and positively impact engineering education.Unlike the robotic assembly lines that assemble products, programming robots for repetitive operations is not a feasible solution for disassembly due to the widely varying types of discarded high-precision electronics. Therefore, disassembly of high-precision electronics is significantly more complex than assembly and requires high robotic adaptability, dexterity and accuracy. The research aims to enable a novel robotic system that can accurately see, interpret, and disassemble high-precision electronics through integrated and convergent research on 3D sensing, deep learning, robotic hand design, and high-precision manipulation. In particular, the research team will (1) perform accurate 3D sensing for complex surfaces exhibiting wide ranges of optical properties and reflectivity variations; (2) design and optimize the design of deep learning architectures for 3D point cloud interpretation; and (3) design a novel lightweight cable-driven robotic hand and develop a high-precision manipulation algorithm enabling efficient learning from experience.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

国家机器人计划 (NRI) 项目致力于解决手机、平板电脑和笔记本电脑等废弃高精度电子产品数量不断增加的问题。目前的回收方法依赖于电池拆卸后的粉碎，因为拆卸的劳动力成本很高。结果，许多有价值的部件被掩埋在垃圾填埋场而没有被回收。拆卸是回收的第一步，比组装更复杂，因为产品类型的变化更大，因此，再制造通常无利可图。该奖项支持研究，为开发新型机器人系统提供所需的基本理解，该系统可以有效地执行高精度拆卸操作，并使其在实际和经济上可行。这项工作有可能缓解回收行业的劳动力短缺问题，减少电子废物，并彻底改变高精度电子产品的再制造。该研究涉及多个学科，包括 3D 传感、深度学习和机器人技术。多学科研究将整合到一系列教育和推广活动中，这将增加代表性不足的群体对研究的参与，并对工程教育产生积极影响。与组装产品的机器人装配线不同，对重复操作的机器人进行编程并不是一个可行的解决方案由于废弃的高精度电子产品的类型多种多样，因此需要进行拆卸。因此，高精度电子产品的拆卸比组装复杂得多，并且需要机器人具有较高的适应性、灵活性和准确性。该研究旨在通过 3D 传感、深度学习、机器人手设计和高精度操纵的集成和融合研究，打造一种能够准确观察、解释和拆卸高精度电子设备的新型机器人系统。特别是，研究团队将 (1) 对表现出广泛光学特性和反射率变化的复杂表面进行精确的 3D 传感； （2）设计并优化3D点云解读的深度学习架构； (3) 设计新型轻型电缆驱动机器人手，并开发高精度操纵算法，实现从经验中高效学习。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响进行评估，认为值得支持审查标准。