EPSRC funded initiative
The Future of Industrial
Robots Is Circular
A data-driven, industry-wide framework that extends the useful life of industrial robots and enables responsible end-of-life remanufacturing and recovery of critical raw materials.
About the project
Moving Industrial Robotics
Beyond Make–Use–Dispose
The UK is the world’s eighth-largest manufacturing economy, and its industrial robot market is projected to grow by over 40% a year between 2020 and 2030. Decommissioned robots contain large amounts of critical raw materials, yet maintenance still relies on manual checks, causing over-maintenance, high costs, and missed faults.
Circular Robot 5.0 introduces digital solutions to extend robot life and enable smarter end-of-life decisions, keeping robots and their materials in use for longer.
What we’re building
Authentic Lifecycle Data, Trustworthy AI, Smarter End-of-Life
Digital Passport
AI + Blockchain
Authentic, tamper-proof data
Real-Time
Continuous robot-health monitoring
Data-capture and interoperability protocols communicate with diverse industrial robots, standardising sensor data and securing it on a private blockchain — forming a digital passport that keeps an authentic, tamper-proof record of each robot’s life.
OUR PRODUCT
Human-Centred AI
Explainable
Transparent, accountable AI
Human-in-the-Loop
People make the final call
Human-centred, explainable AI keeps people at the core of every decision. It assures trustworthy predictions of robot health, detects bias or inaccuracy through a supervisory AI tool, and balances environmental and economic goals.
Lifecycle & End-of-Life Decisions
Environmental + Cost
Full life-cycle assessment & costing
Optimal End-of-Life
Reuse · Remanufacture · Recycle
Bespoke Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) models weigh the environmental and financial impact of each option, feeding an intelligent decision system that recommends the optimum end-of-life route.
Whole-system approach
A Whole-System Approach to Circular Manufacturing
Circular Robot 5.0 brings robotics, AI, blockchain, and sustainable engineering together into a single whole-system approach.
All results are integrated and validated through a physical industrial-robot demonstrator at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), generating insights for the circular redesign of future robots.
The challenge
Why a Circular
Approach Can’t Wait
40%+
Projected annual growth of the UK industrial-robot market, 2020–2030
£224bn
Annual output of UK manufacturing, ranked eighth globally
44
Critical raw materials relevant to robotics (EU produces just 2%)
101
Industrial robots per 10,000 UK workers (2020)
Consortium & partners
Our Consortium & Partners
News and Events
Latest from the Project
A
DEEP DIVE ANALYSIS IN SECONDS
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B
DATA VISUALIZATION
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C
CUSTOM AI SOLUTIONS
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D
SUPPORTING MASSIVE DATA SETS
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E
CHAT WITH YOUR DATA
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