Semiautomatized Disassembly - Some Examples

The semi- or fully automatised disassembly especially of selected electr(on)ic devices is not only because of the standardization by the European Commission (Directive on waste from electrical and electronical equipment – WEEE) today a hot topic. One of the consequences is the increasing inefficiency of manual disassembly in the next years. Manual disassembly of such devices is today the state of the art. Usually only the toxic components are removed and the rest of the materials are shredered and deposed. The paper deals with some examples of semi-automatised, flexible disassembly cells. The main idea beyond is to develop a “tool kit” for such cells. Furthermore a hierarchical control structure consisting of PLCs as well as control computers is described and special control problems shortly outlined.