Robot Assisted Disassembly for the Recycling of Electric Vehicle Batteries

The rising number of electric vehicles (EV) will eventually lead to a comparable number of EV batteries reaching their end-of-life (EOL). Efforts are therefore being made to develop technologies and processes for recycling, remanufacturing and reusing EV batteries. One important step of many such processes is the disassembly of EOL EV batteries, which poses a challenging task due to unpredictable lot sizes and volumes, as well as significant variations in battery design between different car models. In response to these challenges and the increasing demand, we present a concept for a battery disassembly workstation where a human is assisted by a robot. While the human performs the more complex tasks, the proposed robot performs simple, repetitive tasks such as removing screws and bolts. Such a robot requires 1) a suitable procedure for the unscrewing task, 2) a means of autonomously changing screwdriver bit in accordance with the variety of screws and bolts found in EV batteries, and 3) some means of acquiring information regarding the location of these fasteners. This paper summarises the results of our preliminary investigations.