Hybrid Human–Robot Recycling Plant for Electrical and Electronic Equipment

Period: Dec 2018 – Nov 2020
Role: Doctoral Researcher
Principal Investigator: PD Dr.-Ing. habil. Dirk Wollherr
Affiliation: Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Funding: European Union Commission
Consortium: CERTH, IBEC, Tecnalia, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, COMAU, Diginext, GAIKER, Sadako Technologies, Robotnik, Baianat, Interecycling, Indumental
Website: https://www.hr-recycler.eu/

Overview

HR-Recycler investigates how human–robot collaboration can enable safe and efficient recycling of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).

The rapid growth of electronic devices has led to increasing volumes of electronic waste containing valuable yet hazardous materials. Recycling these materials often involves labor-intensive and potentially dangerous manual processes.

The HR-Recycler project aims to develop a hybrid human–robot recycling plant, where robotic systems assist human workers in the disassembly and preprocessing of electronic waste. The project focuses on building safe and reliable robotic systems capable of operating in close interaction with humans in industrial recycling environments.

Technical Focus

The project studies how advanced robotics and control methods can support safe human–robot collaboration in industrial recycling systems, including:

• Safety-critical robotic control: Designing control strategies that guarantee safe interaction between robots and human operators.

• Robust control under uncertain sensing conditions: Ensuring stable system performance despite noisy or incomplete sensor information.

• Signal reconstruction and state estimation: Developing methods to reconstruct system states from imperfect measurements.

• Human–robot collaboration in industrial environments: Integrating robotic manipulation with human supervision in semi-structured workspaces.

My Contribution

As a doctoral researcher, my work focused on control-theoretic foundations for safe robotic operation under sensing uncertainty.

My contributions included:

• Developing robust control strategies for robotic manipulation tasks under uncertain sensory inputs

• Investigating signal reconstruction and state estimation techniques for improving system observability

• Designing control methods that enhance safety and reliability in human–robot collaborative environments

• Contributing to experimental validation within the robotic recycling platform

This work addressed key challenges in safety-critical robotic control, particularly in environments where sensing information is incomplete or noisy.

Applications and Impact

HR-Recycler contributes toward the development of sustainable and safe recycling technologies for electronic waste.

By integrating robotic automation with human expertise, the project explores new approaches to:

• Reduce hazardous manual labor in recycling plants.

• Improve the efficiency of material recovery.

• Support the transition toward a circular economy for electronic materials.

Beyond recycling, the research provides insights into safety-critical control and sensing for human–robot collaboration, which are essential for deploying robots in industrial environments where close interaction with humans is required.

Publications

• Y. Wang, Z. Zhang*, C. Li, and M. Buss, Adaptive incremental sliding mode control for a robot manipulator, in Mechatronics, vol. 82, no. 2022, pp. 102717, 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.mechatronics.2021.102717. [ScienceDirect]

• Z. Zhang, Y. Wang*, and Dirk Wollherr, "Safe Tracking Control of Euler-Lagrangian Systems Based on A Novel Adaptive Super-twisting Algorithm", in IFAC-PapersOnLine, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 9974-9979, July. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.2714. [ScienceDirect]

• Z. Zhang, K. Qian*, B. W. Schuller, and D. Wollherr, "An Online Robot Collision Detection and Identification Scheme by Supervised Learning and Bayesian Decision Theory," in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 1144-1156, July. 2021, doi: 10.1109/TASE.2020.2997094. [IEEEXplore]