More efficient, robust mobile equipment to collect bins
Dec 18, 2014
The Industrial Equipment Design Centre (CDEI UPC) has worked with the company Palvi to develop new equipment for collecting recycling bins. The result greatly improves efficacy and cuts the cost of the recycling process.
Palvi, a company founded 27 years ago with its headquarters in Agramunt (Lleida), manufactures and sells equipment for collecting, crushing, transporting, recycling and treating industrial and urban waste.
In 2012, the company began to work with CDEI UPC to improve the mechanical arms used to collect solid waste bins, also known as containers. This manoeuvre is usually carried out from waste collection vehicles, and is a key factor in Palvi’s industrial process.
Starting from the basis that the company needed to improve the technology it had been using, researchers and technologists in the centre analysed the state of the art. They then revised the conceptual design of the existing mechanism, the guiding system and transmission required to carry out the functions of the machine, and the resistance and kinetics calculations.
A team of ten people, including company specialists and researchers from the centre, have worked on the project for two years. The result is an automated mechanical arm designed to be supported on a lorry. It can collect top-loading recycling bins from the ground on both sides of the street, as well as underground containers. The arm can be moved by one operator (previously, this operation involved at least two people).
The mechanical arm in this system has hydraulic axes and can move to either side of the vehicle. It improves efficiency and cuts the time required to collect this kind of container. Using the old system, operators took between 4 and 5 minutes to complete the collection cycle for each container. Now, this time has been reduced to one minute, partly because the computer vision system can be used to accurately calculate the path to the container and memorize the movement to put the bin back in the right place once it has been emptied.
The new equipment weighs 20% less than the old system, which means that less energy is used to transport it. As bins are handled precisely and their path to the lorry is calculated accurately, they are moved without being knocked, so their useful life is extended.
The technology has led to various patents. It forms part of the DULE system, patented by Palvi and made up of several pieces of equipment including bins and collection and washing systems.
+Info
In 2012, the company began to work with CDEI UPC to improve the mechanical arms used to collect solid waste bins, also known as containers. This manoeuvre is usually carried out from waste collection vehicles, and is a key factor in Palvi’s industrial process.
Starting from the basis that the company needed to improve the technology it had been using, researchers and technologists in the centre analysed the state of the art. They then revised the conceptual design of the existing mechanism, the guiding system and transmission required to carry out the functions of the machine, and the resistance and kinetics calculations.
A team of ten people, including company specialists and researchers from the centre, have worked on the project for two years. The result is an automated mechanical arm designed to be supported on a lorry. It can collect top-loading recycling bins from the ground on both sides of the street, as well as underground containers. The arm can be moved by one operator (previously, this operation involved at least two people).
The mechanical arm in this system has hydraulic axes and can move to either side of the vehicle. It improves efficiency and cuts the time required to collect this kind of container. Using the old system, operators took between 4 and 5 minutes to complete the collection cycle for each container. Now, this time has been reduced to one minute, partly because the computer vision system can be used to accurately calculate the path to the container and memorize the movement to put the bin back in the right place once it has been emptied.
The new equipment weighs 20% less than the old system, which means that less energy is used to transport it. As bins are handled precisely and their path to the lorry is calculated accurately, they are moved without being knocked, so their useful life is extended.
The technology has led to various patents. It forms part of the DULE system, patented by Palvi and made up of several pieces of equipment including bins and collection and washing systems.
+Info
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