Robots can make recycling cheaper and safer
Of course, it makes sense to exercise caution with technologies that eliminate the need for human labor. We ourselves are humans, after all, and we can assume what exactly will happen if the robots take over our responsibilities . Imagine that the HAL exoskeleton , or Siri , or something else can replace you in the office and do your work - conducting in-depth analysis or writing detailed comments and caustic satire. Nevertheless, some types of work are so dangerous that it is much better to provide them to robots. In any case, this is what AMP Robotics hopes in Boulder, Colorado, whose goal is to make the recycling process cheaper and more efficient.
Fast Company magazine reports:
Working at a waste disposal plant is very dangerous. According to the latest data from the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, employees of a processing plant are twice as likely to be injured than representatives of average professions . So, from 2011 to 2013, only in the USA, 17 people died during the performance of their duties at garbage processing plants ...
Meanwhile, AMP Robotics suggests that it would be able to reduce the cost of waste processing by half or even two thirds. This will be possible mainly due to the replacement of people with robots.. The technology is based on two robotic systems: Cartesian (movement occurs along the axes) and a spider-type system (robotic arm-manipulator).
“The main element of most recycling plants is the people who work on the assembly line of the plant,” says M. Horowitz, founder of AMP Robotics. - This is a dangerous and unpleasant job, as well as terribly expensive, because it requires tremendous physical effort. In this regard, the optimization of the waste management system is very important from an economic point of view. ”
Despite the fact that at the moment there is only a prototype of this robotic system, Horowitz reports that the development team is trying to train it to recognize objects that can be reused among the garbage stream. “We use a wide variety of sensors and image processing programs, as well as systems that allow machines to learn . All this helps our robots to recognize the necessary objects, ”continues Horowitz, whose story is increasingly becoming strangely similar to the description of the human brain. Of course, you can look at what is happening from the positive side - it is likely that one day this technology will make human labor in the field of waste processing a relic of the past.
We suggest you watch the entertaining video below: