AUTOMATION u FANUC


critical to their technology’s success. Chief technical officer Peter Hedley said: “In


the early days of our journey, we worked with the MTC. They recommended that we speak to FANUC when we were looking for our robot partner and from day one, we knew we’d made the right choice. “The FANUC LR Mate 200 iD/4SC is the


perfect accompaniment to our vision system. We were looking to bring new technology into a very established, traditional industry. Although mostly reliant on manual pickers, any robots already being used to sort dry, mixed recyclables tended to be large, heavy Delta robots. The ability to retrofit our lightweight system into customers’ existing lines at a reasonable price point was therefore crucial.”


COMPACT AND ULTRA-EFFICIENT This ‘retrofitability’ was a main draw of the LR Mate – as a compact, short arm, mini robot it is easy to integrate into confined spaces, making it the perfect choice for Recycleye Robotics. As a result, the Recycleye team can install a system over a weekend, with no need for the facility to shut down or operations to be suspended. Mr Hedley continued: “In addition, the


FANUC LR-Mate is ultra-efficient, using five times less energy than a Delta robot. And thanks to its sophisticated sensors, there’s no wasted travel – if it’s not gripping anything, it won’t move to the bin. “Reliability was another a key factor for us. It can operate 24/7 for eight years and still come back to the same millimetre point it has been told to move to.”


MITIGATING LABOUR SHORTAGES For materials recycling facilities (MRFs), the benefits of Recycleye’s technology are myriad;


not least that it offers a solution to the industry-wide labour crisis. A recent report by the CIWM revealed that 60% of survey respondents had struggled to recruit staff in the past year, forecasting 89,000 vacancies across the waste and recycling sector by 2028. “The LR Mate robot can pick as accurately as a human worker, and the vision system is as accurate as a human eye,” explained Mr Hedley. “Robots don’t need to take a break, don’t


slow down or get tired, and don’t leave the job or need replacing. This is crucial as it can be very hard to find manual workers for waste picking. Recycleye Robotics is more consistently accurate than a human worker and can work safely alongside human employees, thanks to its safety guarding. “It can also easily handle the hazardous materials that are routinely found in sorting facilities, which can injure human pickers. It’s therefore an ideal complement to the existing workforce.”


PURITY EQUALS PREMIUM Another benefit for MRFs is that materials that are sorted to the highest purity will command a higher price. Recycleye Robotics is usually used at the quality assurance stage of the recycling process, comprising both positive picking (e.g. any recyclables that have been missed) and negative picking (removing any contaminants such plastics in an aluminum line). This boosts sorting accuracy, increasing


purity. And thanks to the system’s transparent traceability function – every item is scanned and the resulting data is visualised on a dashboard – demonstrating pick levels and proving the purity of the batch are made simple. “Quite simply, for our customers in the MRF sector, investing in a Recycleye Robotics system ensures the future of their business by giving them a competitive edge,” added Mr Hedley.


A PERFECT PARTNERSHIP FANUC UK has been part of the Recycleye journey from the start. With an install base of 14 systems across Europe in just three years and 25 FANUC LR Mates already purchased, FANUC UK’s head of sales, Oliver Selby, is confident that this is just the beginning for Recycleye: Mr Selby said: “We wanted to be at


Recycleye’s side from day one. We had very early engagement with them and put in place a plan that allowed them to de-risk their offering to the market. We conducted simulations and physical trials to make sure that when the product was finally released, it was going to work exactly as planned. “The result is a solution that allows a higher


throughput than anything else on the market today and offers a superb, automated alternative to traditional sorting methods using a compact robot, which is easy to deploy, easy to install and with low lifetime costs.”


36 July/August 2023 Irish Manufacturing www.irish-manufacturing.com


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