Drives & Controls March 2023

n NEWS March 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com 10 A UK START-UP THAT has developed an AI- based robotic system for sorting rubbish more accurately and twice as fast as rival systems, has won $17m of financing from a Californian venture capital company, DCVC. The latest funding for London-based Recycleye is in addition to $5m it raised in 2021 and $2.6m it has secured in the form of European and UK government innovation funding. The new funds will be used to scale up the technology and further improve its accuracy. Recycleye uses AI-powered waste-picking robots to cut the cost of sorting materials. Its technology combines machine vision and robotics to sort rubbish with more consistent accuracy than humans can achieve. Using proprietary AI models, the robot “sees” the waste and can pick an unlimited number of material classes, such as plastics, aluminium, paper and cardboard. The company claims that its system is the most accurate and efficient AI robotic picking technology available. Objects are scanned and identified at 60 frames per second – twice as fast as the industry average. Every item is seen an average of 30 times as it travels along a conveyor, doubling the chances of it being identified before picking. The technology can operate around the clock, 365 days a year, with each robot capable of picking up to 33,000 items in a 10-hour shift. The system also captures data that allows plant managers to make strategic decisions. The technology can be retrofitted rapidly to existing facilities. It is installed at the end of the sorting process and can pick contaminants and valuable objects, both of which may have been missed earlier in the sorting process. Recycleye is working with waste management companies around the world that are facing the twin challenges of labour shortages and rising costs. The technology has already been installed in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, the US and France, and there are orders for multiple sorting robot systems from Italy and Belgium. “The opportunity for applying AI waste sorting technology to the global waste management sector is staggering, even when only 8% of waste is currently recycled,” says Recycleye’s co-founder and CEO, Victor Dewulf. “With this investment, we can scale our operations to target a market which we estimate to have a SAM (serviceable available market) of $114bn globally today, but with the potential to increase by 14 times to $1.6 trillion when the cost of sorting is reduced.” Recycleye, which was founded in 2019, currently has a staff of 33. UK AI-based waste-sorting robot start-up wins $17m of funding Recycleye’s AI-powered robots can halve waste-sorting costs and raise accuracies THE MARKET FOR smart multi-carrier conveyor technologies is set to quadruple in size between 2020 and 2026, with a CAGR of 26.5%, according a new study from Interact Analysis. The market is still relatively immature with most entrants having joined in the past five years. But the report describes it as “highly dynamic” and “poised for growth”with new entrants likely to shake it up. At present, the market is dominated by two suppliers: Beckhoff Automation which accounted for 29% of revenues in 2021 (when the global total was almost $300m) and Rockwell Automation on 24.5%. Other players include B&R Automation, Siemens/Festo and Yamaha. Schneider Electric launched its LexiumMC12 multi-carrier system in 2021, and Italy’s Motor Power Company is another recent entrant with its ILSM (independent linear synchronous motors) system. The market consists essentially of two technologies: linear- motor-driven systems and levitating “planar” systems – one recent example of which is Bosch Rexroth’s ctrlX Flow6D system. Interact Analysis says its research has revealed several other automation vendors planning to launch new smart conveyor technologies. Most are already producers of linear motors or servo technologies and some are likely to emerge from the increasingly technology-led Chinese market. Tim Dawson, senior research director at Interact, predicts that these entrants, “could dramatically change the global supplier landscape”. He believes that the growth in manufacturing and automation, coupled with benefits such as flexibility and space saving, will drive demand for the new technologies. The growth of digitalisation, Industry 4.0 and mass customisation “will also undoubtedly positively affect the market”. As the technology is accepted more widely, larger projects with longer track lengths will also be deployed, increasing revenues and expanding the market. Because most suppliers of the smart conveyor technologies are based in Europe, EMEA was the largest market in 2020, with combined revenues of around $100m. But Dawson expects the Asia-Pacific region to overtake EMEA during 2023. By 2026, the APAC market could be worth $450m, ahead of EMEA on $350m. www.interactanalysis.com Global sales of smart conveyors are set to quadruple