WPI professor leading $2.5M recycling robots project

Photo | Courtesy of WPI WPI Assistant Professor Berk Calli and students will develop robotics for recycling centers. Pictured (from left) are James Akl, Fadi Alladkani, Arianna Kan, Kyle Heavey, Mikayla Fischler, Calli, and Snehal Dikhale.

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By Grant Welker

A robotics scientist at Worcester Polytechnic Institute will lead a team of researchers in a project to help recycling centers better sort materials.

The project, which has received $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation, is being led by Berk Calli, assistant professor in the computer science department and robotics engineering program at WPI. WPI assistant professor of computer science Jacob Whitehill is also taking part, as are seven other researchers at Yale University and Boston University.

The four-year initiative will include building a mock recycling line at WPI, with a goal of helping recycling center workers sort waste in safer, cleaner and more profitable ways. The idea, WPI says, is to develop robotics technology to be deployed at waste recycling facilities to make them more efficient and to improve conditions for workers who sort mixed recyclables by hand.

The researchers hope to develop object-detection technologies, robotic manipulation algorithms, and robotic arms and effectors to help sort waste.

Calli said the project aims to introduce robotics technology in a way to improve the working conditions of employees. Improving sorting operations at recycling centers is a difficult technological challenge, he said, because objects of different materials, shapes, and appearances move along sorting lines, often in cluttered piles.