ROBOCYCLE: Autonomous Dual-Arm Robotic Manipulation and Coordination for Recycling Applications
For municipal waste sorting systems, this work provides a scalable solution to handle transparent, deformable, and cluttered objects, addressing labor shortages and increasing recycling efficiency.
ROBOCYCLE integrates multi-view RGB-D perception, transformer-based segmentation, and 6-DoF grasp planning to achieve 90.3% grasp success and 84.3% task success in autonomous dual-arm recycling, including unscrewing PET bottle caps.
As urban waste volumes escalate and labor shortages intensify, automated waste sorting systems are becoming a necessity. However, current robotic solutions often struggle with the 3D perception and manipulation of transparent, deformable, or cluttered objects. This work introduces ROBOCYCLE, an autonomous dual-arm robotic recycling platform designed to meet the recycling standards of the Tokyo metropolitan area. Our approach integrates multi-view RGB-D perception, transformer-based instance segmentation using RF-DETR, and 6-DoF grasp planning via the Anygrasp SDK. By processing segmentated point clouds, the system generates robust candidate poses for irregular and deformable waste. The system achieved a 90.3% grasp success rate and 84.3% overall task success rate, effectively performing complex coordinated tasks such as unscrewing PET bottle caps. The proposed platform offers a scalable solution for autonomous waste management in real-world human environments.