A prototype of an autonomous car dismantling station was built, consisting of a car handling frame and dismantling tools. The tools are robot controlled and operate on basis of a visual identification system. In this way certain components such as tyres, batteries, glass and liquids (most of them containing environmentally harmful materials) can be removed. Compared to manual dismantling the processing speed is significantly higher and employees are relieved from health and safety risks. The dismantling station is most suitable for bigger recyclers, who have to dismantle and remove a large amount of environmentally harmful parts before crushing the cars.
The handling frame, which is in fact the body of the dismantling station, is made of beams which are situated between two ordinary car lifters. These lifters are mutually connected to assure synchronous functioning. When pressed between the two side beams, the car can be lifted to a desired height and be rotated longitudinally along +/- 90 degrees. In this way it is possible to optimise the position of the car for different dismantling operations. Although it is not yet possible to dismantle the entire vehicle, several developed tools are able to remove some relevant components already: tyre gripper to remove the tyre from the wheel; battery gripper and cable scissors to take out the battery and stow it on a storage container; windscreen cutter to cut the laminated wind screen off the car body; side window breaker to break the side windows into pieces. The frame itself and, before all, the tyre gripper are new innovations. One has to bear in mind that the tyre gripper cannot be used manually. It always requires the robot station to operate.