Public Funding for Reco Turbo Limited

The main motivation for the BATREV Technology Feasibility Study (TFS) is addressing the business need for remanufacturing warranty-return & damaged/worn/EoL Electric Vehicle Batteries, (EVBs), the variety & quantities of which are increasing exponentially as vehicle manufacturers compete fiercely in the EV market. The main states-of-the art address high-volume/low-variety EVB-remanufacturing markets, i.e. (i) high-cost fixed-automation, and/or (ii) robots with limited intelligence which is insufficient for technical fitness-for-purpose for small-batch production & frequent change-overs. This provides an immediate and growing BATREV business opportunity as current technologies cannot cope with EVB-disassembly's adverse health & safety conditions, varying levels of wear, corrosion and damage, and part identification/location uncertainty created through in-service maintenance/up-grading/component degradation. BATREV-outputs will be at virtual-demonstrator-level, i.e.: (1) TFSPLAN & TFSSIM database tools of RRE simulation assets enabling (i) creation & visualisation of RRE-scenarios, (ii) RRE mechanical-characteristics, (iii) end-effector motions, (iv) scalability and manufacturability data-collection & output to TFS. (2) TFSOPT AI-enabled tool for optimised RRE Planning & QCDE characteristics. The UK economy benefits from BATREV by providing routes to high levels of import substitution by originally-imported engines being remanufactured in the UK and being substituted by UK OEMs for new imported engines. The Technical Feasibility Study of Battery Remanufacturing for Electric Vehicles (BATREV) project will undertake a feasibility study to identify the scalability, manufacturability and capability of using autonomous robots and autonomous operations planning systems to undertake the remanufacturing of EVBs, i.e. battery-to-component disassembly, operations planning of component repair & reconditioning processes and component-to-battery reassembly. Providing a clear understanding of the processes needed to scale-up will be a primary aim of the BATREV project particularly in terms of: (1) De-risking scaling-up of the innovative autonomous Robot Remanufacturing Engineer (RRE) technology and autonomous operations planning methods. (2) making scaling-up faster and less costly, and (3) providing a clear route to scale-up of RRE technology. BATREV TFS will examine RRE scale-up and its effects on UK competitiveness, and numbers and size of EVB remanufacturers. Social benefits arise through improved job security and employment opportunities from increased organisational growth rates through greater robot enabled productivity. Quality of life impacts inside/outside the consortium are derived from competitive advantage improvements. Environmental and economic benefits arise from (1) reuse of battery components where materials are ~65% of costs, (2) reduced waste, landfill, pollution, CO2 emissions, and (3) reduced lead times hence less factory light & heat energy/EVB-unit, and (4) less energy costs through less factory space requirements.

The remanufacturing sector, particular those who focus on complex products such as engine assemblies, are experiencing rapid reductions in production efficiency, that leads to restricted growth. These issues are arising through the need to remanufacture increasingly higher levels of variation in product designs and damage states of end-of-life cores. The ARCP project will undertake technical, operational and commercial feasibility studies to identify the functional, operational and economic suitability of using autonomous robots and autonomous operations planning systems to undertake the remanufacturing of complex products, i.e. product-to-component disassembly, operations planning of component remanufacturing & reconditioning processes and component-to-product reassembly. Feasibility studies will include for example quality capability analyses and the effects of product, process & demand variability on ARCP processes. Industrial research will create ARCP components for inclusion in feasibiity studies, e.g. trials to identify the part design ranges of robots. ARCP will, therefore, meet an industry need for improved remanufacturing efficiency and flexibility and open up both national and international market opportunities for the industrial remanufacturing partners.