Assessing the ease of human-robot cooperative EV motor disassembly for permanent magnet recovery

Ensuring the sustainability and circularity of the EU automotive sector, in accordance with the EU Green Deal and the EU Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act, is essential. This includes, among other actions, the effective recovery of CRM-rich permanent magnets from Electric Vehicle (EV) motors. With the rising demand and production of EVs, innovative strategies are essential to upscale and to increase the economic viability of CRM recovery. For this human-robot cooperative systems are considered to offer efficient solutions for permanent magnet recovery from EV motors, as they enable a better trade-off in terms of speed, flexibility, and cost efficiency in comparison with manual or fully robotic approaches. Therefore, the presented research assesses the ease of permanent magnet recovery by human-robot cooperative EV motor disassembly. The work introduces a generic demanufacturing cell and establishes criteria for robotic disassembly and ease of disassembly information, while presenting modifications to the previously developed Robotic ease of Disassembly Metric (Re-DiM) to address challenges specific to the EV motor product group. Using this enhanced Re-DiM metric, it compares the disassembly time for manual and human-robot cooperative disassembly across two different models of EV motors of different brands. Based on this analysis, the study identifies key challenges in robotic disassembly and provides guidelines for design improvements for EV motors. The work concludes by offering recommendations for integrating human-robot cooperative disassembly requirements into the new EU regulation on vehicle design and end-of-life vehicle management proposal.