Autonomous Assembly and Disassembly - Key Technologies and Links for the Adaptive Self-Optimization of Future Circular Production

Abstract

European industry and beyond, faces the challenge of becoming carbon neutral within an unprecedented short timeframe. An important approach to achieve this goal is the transformation of the current economy to a circular economy. In this context, the reuse of technical products as well as their recycling are in the foreground. Flexibility and adaptability are crucial for the competitiveness of companies. Therefore, adaptive and autonomous assembly and disassembly systems are the key. Classically automated assembly systems are inflexible due to a mostly rigid and predefined sequence control and are mostly strongly oriented towards economic criteria. Existing autonomous production cells, with their focus on autonomy and failure-free operation, also reach their limits in terms of adaptivity. For this reason, intelligent systems are needed that are able to act autonomously and without interference, as well as to cope with complex and cognitively demanding situations and tasks.