PICVISA continues and reinforces its strategic commitment to the application of Artificial Intelligence in the recycling sector, becoming a pioneer in the application of this technology both through robotic solutions and in its different families of optical sorters. Artificial Intelligence has begun to enter the recycling sector and its progress is presumed to be unstoppable since it allows for the resolution of typical problems of equipment that does not have its application. PICVISA is a pioneer in this type of solution combined with the robotic ones that will allow the treatment plants to automate processes that until now have remained manual.
The ECOGLASS & ECOPACK family of optical sorters for glass, plastic, paper/cardboard, and others also extends its presence in the USW plants in Spain. PICVISA reinforces its leadership in this application of which it has been a pioneer in its conception and continues to demonstrate its high performance.
The irruption of the Industry 4.0 of hand with Artificial Intelligence has transformed all the managerial environments. It has done so with the appearance of machines capable of recognizing and facing up to a problem, understanding the situation, and acting accordingly. Incorporating intelligent robots into a production process can be the key to improving productivity and the quality of the final product. Although Artificial Intelligence can be costly in some cases, its benefits include greater accuracy in tasks and the replacement of labor in usually slow and tedious tasks.
To take advantage of all this potential of robotics, intelligence, and artificial vision, PICVISA has launched the business line ROBOTICS by PICVISA. Its objective is to provide intelligent and customized robotic solutions to help companies face the new challenges of automation. Intelligent robots can:
- Recognize the presence and orientation of an object and carry out selection tasks.
- Detect that something is not working properly in the production line and stop the activity.
- Identify improvements in the way a certain task is performed.
- Collect data and analyze it to help in decision making for process improvement.
Our first intelligent robot is ECOPICK, a robotic solution aimed at automating sorting tasks, identifying and separating valuable materials within a disorderly production flow. ECOPICK is also responsible for quality control, identifying and separating improper materials.
ECOPICK is the result of the know-how accumulated over all our years of work in the recycling sector, and was created with the vision of transforming the waste treatment industry. But ECOPICK is only our first intelligent robot. The objectives of ROBOTICS by PICVISA are ambitious: we want to design intelligent units to improve production processes in different industries, such as packaging, textile and food.
Taking into account the specific needs of each sector, we have carried out a previous feasibility study in which a technical team made up of engineers and experts in Artificial Intelligence, Vision, and Robotics participate. Specifically, different aspects of the production chain are analyzed, for example, the characteristics of the pieces to be separated and classified, the peculiarities of the conveyor belt, the field of vision, and the design of the robot gripper.
We accompany the customer in the development, manufacture, and commissioning of our plug and play robotic solutions.