Aleš Ude

Is it possible to train robots to safely and effectively recycle the growing amounts of e-waste? This is the question the partners in the EU’s ReconCycle project set out to answer. They came up with a resounding “yes”. Led by Dr. Aleš Ude, Professor and Project Coordinator at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the team of researchers from Slovenia, Germany and Italy developed adaptive AI-powered robotic systems capable of dismantling electronic devices. The project successfully created robots that can reconfigure themselves for different tasks. Dr Ude talked with WMW about the groundbreaking efforts to automate the complex challenge of e-waste recycling.