With the rapid surge in the number of on-road Electric Vehicles (EVs), the amount of spent lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is also expected to explosively grow. The spent battery packs contain valuable metal and materials that should be recovered, recycled, and reused. However, only less than 5% of the Li-ion batteries are currently recycled, due to a multitude of challenges in technology, logistics and regulation. Existing battery recycling is performed manually, which can pose a series of risks to the human operator as a consequence of remaining high voltage and chemical hazards. Therefore, there is a critical need to develop an automated battery recycling system. In this paper, we present ABatRe-sim, an open-source robotic battery recycling simulator, to facilitate the research and development in efficient and effective battery recycling au-omation. Specifically, we develop a detailed CAD model of the battery pack (with screws, wires, and battery modules), which is imported into Gazebo to enable robot-object interaction in the robot operating system (ROS) environment. It also allows the simulation of battery packs of various aging conditions. Furthermore, perception, planning, and control algorithms are developed to establish the benchmark to demonstrate the interface and realize the basic functionalities for further user customization. Discussions on the utilization and future extensions of the simulator are also presented.

翻译：随着道路上电动汽车数量的激增，废旧锂离子电池的数量预计也将爆炸式增长。这些废旧电池组中含有宝贵的金属和材料，应予以回收、再循环和再利用。然而，由于技术、物流和法规等多重挑战，目前仅有不足5%的锂离子电池得到回收。现有电池回收依赖人工操作，残留的高电压和化学危害可能给操作人员带来一系列风险。因此，开发自动化电池回收系统具有迫切需求。本文提出ABatRe-sim——一个开源机器人电池回收仿真器，旨在促进高效有效的电池回收自动化研发。具体而言，我们构建了包含螺丝、导线和电池模块的详细电池组CAD模型，并将其导入Gazebo仿真环境，实现在机器人操作系统（ROS）环境中的机器人-物体交互。该仿真器还支持模拟不同老化状态的电池组。此外，我们开发了感知、规划和控制算法以建立基准，展示接口并实现基础功能，便于用户进一步定制。本文还讨论了仿真器的应用前景及未来扩展方向。