Kingston University Chosen to Lead UK’s First Waste and Recycling Robotics Hub
Kingston University chosen to lead UK’s first waste and recycling robotics hub
Kingston University has been selected to lead the UK’s first dedicated waste and recycling robotics adoption hub, NORAH, as part of a £40 million government initiative. The hub will test and validate robotic systems on real waste streams, focusing on materials like textiles and mixed recyclables, to improve recovery rates and reduce landfill use. It will also provide training, economic modeling, and deployment support to accelerate automation in the waste sector.
Source: Robotics & Automation News · Read original article ↗
Loading article text…
What the source reports
Publisher-reported claims, with original evidence. These results have not been independently verified by RoboSignal.
Reported numbers
organisations
>150
Source excerpts and review record
Automatically extracted; no manual editorial approval recorded.
ill be validated on live contaminated waste streams, generating measured data on classification accuracy, throughput, contamination handling and material recovery. This is combined with site-specific economic modelling to provide payback and investment cases, reducing uncertainty and enabling faster adoption. Services include: Real testbeds using contaminated, heterogeneous waste streams, including textiles, mixed re
Open source S6
will address this gap by enabling robotics systems to be tested, validated and implemented on real waste streams. Initial focus is on complex materials such as textiles, mixed recyclables and soft-material waste, where current systems perform least reliably but where gains in recovery and productivity are greatest. Using advanced sensing systems, multi-arm robotic sorting cells and digital simulation, technologies w
Open source S5
tion programmes addressing sector-specific challenges such as mixed fibre sorting, contamination removal and automated disassembly Access to waste operators, local authorities and commercial facilities, providing direct routes to deployment and live operational validation The NORAH project, led by Kingston University, will feature a consortium including the University of Kent, the West London Waste Authority and robo
Open source S8
tic developers, waste operators, local authorities and national bodies. The hub will combine deployment with research capability and policy alignment, ensuring solutions are aligned to industry needs, regulatory requirements and scalable deployment pathways – enabling a wider uptake of robotics across the waste sector. Discussing the project, Professor Argyriou said the plan was to support more than 150 organisations
Open source S9
Source：Robotics & Automation News · roboticsandautomationnews.com