The Max Planck Society and Amazon have awarded the financing of gift surveys to the Max Planck Society researchers Joerg Stueckler and Dirk Ponge for projects aimed at minimizing waste by keeping materials, products and services in circulation for as possible.
Stueckler and Ponge submitted their projects in responsibility for the Max Planck Society and Amazon Science Hub’s Sustainability Call for Research Propals (CFP), which was intended to promote advanced process to a more circular economy.
“At Amazon, we are convinced that science innovation guidance is important to solve the challenges of building a more sustainable shistment,” said Zak Watts, Amazon’s Sustainability Director in Europe. “We are happy to work with the Max Planck Society to work towards a more circular economy, included the implementation of robotics to improve waste extraction.
Stueckler is a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. His research group focuses on bodily vision, especially the study of robots who learn to perceive and act through interaction with their surrounding.
Stueckler’s project is entitled “Physically plausible Multi-Object 6D bags in Object Pils from RGB-D images.” When recycling or recycling of objects, the ability to automatically identify individual items from piles with objects is a critical step in the collection and sorting of new or used items in return shipments. To solve such problems with robot systems, robots need the ability to detect objects in a pile and also work in what order and how the objects can be removed.
“The project gives us an opportunity to pursue advanced research that can facilitate the development of new technologies towards a more resource and sustainable circular economy,” Stueckler said.
Stueckler is working to develop algorithms that estimate the position and orientation of objects and of the physical interactions between them. The algorithms use RGB-D images-shorthand for “red-green-blue-depth”-to predict an object’s 6D positions, which means its position and orientation. Over the next year, Stueckler and his team will focus on objects with known form and texture stacked in a box, a regular scenario in logistics applications.
Ponge is the group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Iron Research’s Department of Microstructure Physics and Alloy Design. His project, “Improving recycling of aluminum recovery,” aims to integrate more life -rental products into the recycling stream.
Recycling of aluminum from scrap can save up to 95 pierced energy used for the production of new or primarily aluminum. Aluminum and its alloys undergo several recycling loops during their life cycle. Due to the inevitable mixture of incompatible scrap and various metals that draw the recycling process, damage oovers pollution is enriched in the secondary aluminum alloys. After several cycles, this causes them to become “dirty aluminum.”
By using thermodynamics to improve the tolerance of recycled aluminum for impurities, Ponge suggested to increase the recycling speed while reducing new aluminum in the recycling loop.
“We need to improve the recycling speed of aluminum alloys to achieve the targets of circular economic and sustainable metallurgy,” Ponge said.
Ponge also suggested using advanced material characterization techniques as well as new alloy design simulations to investigate damage to recycled aluminum caused by impurities. The goal of Ponges project is to fine -tune the microstructure of aluminum to allow for more impurities while holding the quality of aluminum.
The Max Planck Society and Amazon Science Hub were launched in 2022 and focuses on promoting research and development in Germany. It is the first Amazon Science hub that exists outside the United States, and its researchers utilize techniques, including automated reasoning and artificial intelligence in their sustainability work.
Sustainability attempts were reviewed and selected jointly by the Max Planck Society and Amazon using three criteria: intellectual profits, innovation or translational influence and execution. Science Hub also looked for projects that added special challenges. These include the establishment of end-to-end-transparency in the recycling system throughout Europe; Rising collection of waste from European consumers; Implementation of technological or infrastructural changes in the European recycling system; and scales improvise to the European recycling system through politics or industrial cooperation.
All project results will be made available to the public in the spirit of open source and open science through academic publications.