Robotic Sorting Could Be the Efficient Future of Recycling

When you hear terms like robotics and artificial intelligence tossed around, you probably expect the conversation to be about some lofty futuristic subject.Mining on asteroids, perhaps, or doing heart-transplant operations by remote control. The last thing you'd guess is that talking about sorting trash to separate out the recyclables.

Well, guess again.For years, researchers have been looking to robots as a possible answer for coping with the mountains of refuse generated by our throwaway civilization. To that end, a company calledAMP Robotics——与纸箱行业组织的合作Carton Counciland Denver-basedAlpine Waste & Recycling— has developed a recycling robot called Clarke, that uses artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of carton recycling.

Clarke — which is named after sci-fi visionary Arthur C. Clarke, according toa company press release— uses a machine vision system to identify recyclables, an artificial intelligence to sort them, and then employs spider-like arms equipped with specially designed gripping claws to pick up items that are to be recycled.

The robotic system'sdeep-learning programminguses what it learns from picking up cartons to devise more efficient techniques, teaching itself (and other networked Clarkes in other locations) to perform better. Eventually, Clarke will become capable of picking up items at a rate of two per second.

"Clarke provides a new and exciting approach to sorting recyclables. Currently there is nothing out there that does what this system does," said AMP Robotics founder and chief executiveMatanya Horowitzsaid in the press release. "Clarke can be a cost-effective way for facilities to introduce new packaging that does not always have a large volume. Additionally, unique grippers can be developed to identify and pick contaminants, which is one of the biggest issues our industry currently faces."

Recyclingcan bederided by criticsas inefficient and not immediately worth the money; robotic innovation could help reduce the cost. Now if we only had a robot to remind us to unplug our electricity-wasting gadgets at night and bring along a reusable mug to the coffee shop, we'd be on our way to total Earth-friendliness.