The Horizon Europe-backed iBot4CRMs project is developing self-learning, AI-enabled robots to dismantle end-of-life products and recover critical materials, with four large-scale pilot sites planned in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Türkiye. Coordinated by Norway’s NORCE Research, the project aims to test the technology in real industrial settings rather than confining development to laboratory conditions.
The project has a total cost of 9.56 million euros, including 8.03 million euros in EU support, and runs from December 2024 to November 2028. Its four large-scale pilots will test multiple validation scenarios. The systems are intended for recovering valuable materials from electric motors, vehicles, electronics and household appliances.
Waste streams containing critical raw materials vary in size, shape and composition, and can be contaminated, making consistent processing difficult. Conventional automated sorting works efficiently when incoming material is predictable, but complex electronic and vehicle waste still depends heavily on manual dismantling and sorting. As a result, valuable magnets and metals can go unrecovered or be downgraded into mixed fractions.
To address those challenges, the project combines senso-mechanical perception, AI-based recognition, evolutionary learning and flexible robotic manipulation. The robots are intended to identify valuable components, physically dismantle products and pick selected materials in real time. The aim is a scalable system, rather than a laboratory robot limited to a narrow range of pre-selected objects.
Neodymium magnets are a priority because electric motors contain concentrated rare-earth value that can be lost when motors are shredded without prior recovery. End-of-life vehicles, motors and electrical equipment also contain copper, precious metals and rare earths already located inside the EU.
Better dismantling could improve material recovery and the quality of downstream recycling feedstock, potentially reducing processing costs and increasing recycled-material yields. For recycling companies, the commercial test will be whether the robots can deliver sufficient throughput and reliability in dirty, variable waste environments while competing with manual labour, conventional shredding and bulk sorting.
If the pilots demonstrate sufficient speed and recovery value, robotic dismantling could help enable the EU’s 2030 recycling targets and industrial-scale urban mining. The planned trials across the four countries will assess the technology in real industrial settings.
