The 15th International Conference on Advanced Robotics
Tallinn University of Technology
Tallinn, Estonia, June 20-23, 2011
Disassembly Automation for Lithium-Ion Battery Systems Using a
Flexible Gripper
Jan Schmitt, Hannes Haupt, Michael Kurrat, Annika Raatz
Abstract— The integration of lithium ion battery
technology in the automotive sector has increased enormously
during the last years. Additionally, beside the production and
operation of these battery systems the recycling has to be
taken into account concerning the challenge of ecologic
sustainability. An economical recycling depends on the
possibility to mechanize or automate several disassembly steps
in order to separate the valuable battery cells or active cell
materials.
Hence, this contribution presents the challenges of
disassembly automation in the special context of lithium ion
battery technology in general. Furthermore, a flexible gripper
system is presented in detail to show how the disassembly
process can be supported by automation. Next to the
mechanical design of the gripper system, the control
architecture and the integrated functionalities, such as voltage
or resistance measurement, are described.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE application of large scale lithium ion batteries in the
automotive sector is increasing recently. The
legislation as well as the OEMs or suppliers in the
European car industry enforce the serial-production of
lithium ion batteries, respectively the application of battery
systems for hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric vehicles.
Thereby, the lithium ion technology is preferred, such as
their higher energy density, in comparison with other
battery technologies (Ni-MH or Ni-Cd) [1], which means a
potentially compact design, or cycle stability for a high
durability. Considering the entire product life cycle of a car
battery system the recycling becomes a major challenge in
the next 15 to 20 years, as battery cells contain valuable
active materials (e.g. Al, Co, Li or Cu). If those materials
can be recycled economically, the life cycle costs of lithium
ion batteries decrease. Hence, reasonable concepts for the
disassembly of lithium ion battery systems and for the
separation of the mechanical components have to be
designed in order to recycle battery materials or reuse
Manuscript received March 21, 2011. This work was supported by the
Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear
Savety.
J. Schmitt and A. Raatz are with the Institute of Machine Tools and
Production Technology, Technische Universität Braunschweig, 38106
Braunschweig, phone: 0049-531-391-7159; fax: 0049-531-391-5842; e-
mail: jan.schmitt, a.raatz@tu-bs.de
H. Haupt and M. Kurrat are with the Institute High Voltage Technology
and Electric Power Systems, Technische Universität Braunschweig, 38106
Braunschweig, phone: 0049-531-391-7788; fax: 0049-531-391-8106; e-
mail: hannes.haupt, m.kurrat@tu-bs.de
978-1-4577-1159-6/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 291
components of the battery systems. One central aspect to
increase the cost effectiveness of disassembly is the
automation of a subset of disassembly steps.
Recently, the disassembly is characterized by manual
operations predominantly [2] and automation aspects are
only considered in the field of research. The focus is either
on the robot assisted disassembly of a single object or class,
e.g. automated PC or camcorder disassembly [3], [4] or
considers the improvement of disassembly operations, such
as grasping flexibility or robustness in order to handle a
multitude of subassemblies [5].
Another important aspect regarding disassembly tasks
refers to the connection types. In [6] the systematic design
of connections related to assembly and disassembly are
discussed and in [7] an optimization approach for the
automated disconnection of screw coupling is presented.
This brief review shows the existence and feasibility of
automation approaches in the field of disassembly.
This contribution shows the benefits of a flexible gripper
system as a single automation concept for the lithium ion
battery recycling. Thereby, the necessity of disassembly
automation and the barriers are discussed and related to
lithium ion batteries. As the main focus, the mechanical
design of the flexible gripper is presented as well as a PLC
based control concept with its programming and
visualization elements.
II. ASPECTS OF DISASSEMBLY AUTOMATION OF LITHIUM ION
BATTERY SYSTEMS
The development of an automation solution for assembly or
disassembly processes is always based on the product.
Recently, the major part of disassembly is manual work and
can be mainly traced back to the missing standardization
and the missing design suitability to disassemble the
product. Hence, a huge number of design guidelines are
presented in literature [8] [9], e.g. to provide open access
and visibility for separation point or to reduce the number
of components. The elevation and establishment of those
design rules are caused by multiple aspects, which are
categorized in Table 1 and show the automation barriers of
disassembly. Concerning these aspects the design of
automated or robotic disassembly cells has to fulfill a huge
range of requirements, which can be attended by a high
degree of flexibility. An automation concept for the entire
battery system disassembly is not efficient, as several
disassembly steps, and the external conditions of
disassembly do not support a highly automated recycling
process. Out of this motivation a supporting device for delivered by a logistics provider to the disassembly plant,
robotic disassembly is shown in this contribution. before they will be supplied to the disassembly area by in-
plant transport and/or handling units.
TABLE 1: BARRIERS FOR DISASSEMBLY AUTOMATION The mechanical disassembly starts with the dismantling
Category Property of the housing by reason of accessibility. The disassembly
of electronic components such as cables, master or slave
Product No disassembly friendly design
No disassembly friendly fasteners boards as well as other potentially voltaged subassemblies,
No modularization constitute a central and cost intensive sub-process. To get
Material mixture single and exposed battery cells the module and cell
Process Complex disassembly processes (e.g. undercuts)
Existence of form-labile parts
connectors have to be released at last. These disassembly
Environment Product variance caused by usage steps have a very low automation potential, as many cables
Product variance caused by aging are involved and the operation area is poorly accessible.
Advisory automation environment at the
recycling area (dirt and dust)
But the automation potential increases, if the battery cells
Logistic Variant diversity are no longer connected to one another or to other
Temporal delivery fluctuations components. The state of charge and the potentially direct
Missing inbound identification (labelling) contact to the cells of a worker, make an automation
concept reasonable referring to safety aspect. In particular,
Product related properties correlate closely with aspects of if the battery cells should be sorted according to their status
the disassembly process, whereas environmental and or be directly conveyed to a cell opening station.
logistic factors are based on each other. If a product has Hence, this contribution presents a flexible robotic
many different and hard to release fasteners the used tools gripper system for handling battery cells and an automation
for the disassembly process have to be very flexible or a
concept in order to sort the cells and/or supply them to a
tool change has to be provided. This is a further cost factor.
cell opening facility, where the material will be separated
The environmental impacts of usage or aging directly
before the hydro-/pyrometallurgical recycling process
influence the variant diversity, as each status quo of a
product is a new variant. The general missing of inbound succeeds.
identification systems or standardized labeling hinder the This brief description of the process chain and the
mono-fractual disassembly, particularly if the cell identification of a gripper system as a part of an automation
chemistry of lithium ion batteries in unknown. Thereby, concept lead to the derivation of the requirements on the
another reason to automate as much disassembly steps as mechanical as well as on the control level.
possible becomes obvious. The material mixture and
especially the necessary treatment of hazardous chemicals
complicate the disassembly. Therefore, a lithium ion
battery system is potentially a dangerous disassembly
object for workers and manual disassembly. The risk of the
high-voltage injuries and thermal/chemical reactions, if a
battery cell will be damaged during the disassembly
process is existent. At this, hydrofluoric acid can occur in
association with water or an organic solvent electrolyte can
inflame by reason of a short circuit.
Hence, automation concepts have to be developed, which
minimize the risk exposure and makes the disassembly
process more efficient. Therefore, the next paragraph
shows a simplified process chain of the disassembly
process and identifies one object of investigation regarding
its automation potential.

III. DISASSEMBLY PROCESS AND REQUIREMENTS OF A Figure 1: Simplified process chain

FLEXIBLE GRIPPER
B. Requirements of the gripper system
A. Simplified Process Chain
The previous paragraphs discuss general challenges of
In order to show the general process steps to disassembe
automated disassembly and refer them to the disassembly
a battery system (BS) Figure 1 gives an idea of a possible
of lithium ion battery systems. However, the cell handling
way to systematize the principle disassembly sequences of
as a disassembly step in the process chain was identified to
a high abstraction level. Initially, the battery system is
be automated in order to sort cells and/or to feed a cell

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opening station. Based on the problem of product variants
the gripper has to be flexible to grasp different cell
geometries. As the main handling objects pouch-cells are
investigated here. This prismatic cell type is packed by a
flexible aluminum composite laminate. The Figure 2 shows
stylized two different pouch-cell and contactor geometries
with dx as the distance between them.
Furthermore, one criterion of cell characterization is the
actual voltage and inner resistance, therefore an integrated
voltage and internal resistance metering has to be provided
by the gripper system. For this reason the contactors are
defined as the relevant grip spaces.
Figure 2: Two different cell/contactor geometries of lithium ion cell types
The handling scenario can be described as following:
1. Identification of the actual battery type
2. Adjustment of the gripper according to the
battery type
3. Grasp operation
4. Voltage/resistance measurement
5. Robotic handling to the next process station
according the measurement values
6. Displace operation
As step 2 to 4 is the main focus of the gripper
development, several requirements can be derived in
combination with the characteristics of the varying lithium
ion battery cells.
The weight of a cell is about 800-1000 g and the
contactors material as well as the geometry and distance
between the contactors varies (d1…dn). According to
available test cells a length adaption from 100-300 mm is
required. The thickness of the contactors also differs from
solid 3mm ones to labil submilimeter arresters. The aim of
the in-process measurement to determine the actual cell-
voltage and the inner resistance limits the number of
grasping zones at the battery to the arrestors.
cants caused by usage or aging. FGC is calculated by
FGC FG  FC with
(1)
mB ˜ ( aR  g ) ˜ S
FG
2˜P
where mB (1kg) is the maximum battery mass, aR the
robots acceleration (1.5g), μ the friction coefficient of
gripper jaw and battery contactor (0.49) and S the savety
factor (2). The gripper force FG is calculated about 50 N for
each gripper jaw. FC can increase FG by a severalfold and is
hard to predict, such as the condition of the battery system
and the battery cells is unknown at the point of delivery.
Hence, a gripper with a much higher gripping force as
calculated has to be chosen (see section IV.A).
By reason of the damage free handling of the battery
cells the force impact to the contactors has to be
investigated. Here, a static-mechanic FEM analysis is used
to apply the corresponding force normal to the contactor
area. The contact pressure per unit area was increased
linearly in the simulation. The result shows a negligible
influence of the gripper force to the different contactor
geometries, thicknesses and materials. The total
deformation is the sub-millimeter region, where a force of
250 N was applied. The used commercial two finger
gripper provide this force at a working pressure of 6 bar
and a finger length of 50 mm. In consequence a destruction
of the arresters can be excluded. Figure 3 shows
exemplarily the simulation results.

IV. SYSTEM DESIGN

A. Gripping force and gripping principle

The main requirement of the gripper system is to ensure
the save grasp of the object. Therefore, the gripping force
FG has to be calculated. In case of disassembly a collateral
factor, the clamping force FC, which has to be provided by
the gripper, is added. This force considers external forces
applied by the clamping frame of the battery module or Figure 3: FEM simulation of two exemplary battery arrestor geometries

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 In order to develop a robotic gripper system with
integrated battery status detection, both arresters have to be
grasped, but their position varies according to the cell
manufacturer. Hence, a flexible, length adaptive, system is
necessary. The chosen gripping principle is shown in
Figure 4. Here, two commercial two-finger parallel
grippers are suitable, one is fixed and the other one can be
moved by a linear spindle axis to adapt the system to other
geometric battery formats. The battery is grasped by the
Jaw coupling
jaws, at which they are comprised of a nonconductive and elements (PP)
conductive part in order to measure the actual voltage.
Figure 5: Gripper finger and jaw Contact plates (Al)

C. LINEAR AXIS AND MOTOR

In order to provide the flexibility according to the
geometrical variant of the battery cells one gripper has to
be moved along the horizontal axis. Hence, a linear spindle
axis driven by a brushless DC motor is used. The mechanic
Figure 4: Gripping principle model of the spindle drive is shown in Figure 6.

B. GRIPPER AND GRIPPER JAW

On the shown requirements and calculations a
conventional two finger parallel gripper with pneumatic
actuation has been chosen for each battery contactor. The
maximum clamping force of the gripper is about 415 N by
a working pressure of 6 bar and a finger length of 25 mm. Figure 6: Model of the drive chain
This force is much higher than the calculated gripper force
FG, but it was chosen as the possibility to use long gripper The required drive torque MDR is calculated by the
fingers is given and to operate at a low level of operating demanded torques of the single elements of the systems
pressure, so that the air consumption is very low. Also the MGripper, MFriction, MSpindle, MRotor, MGearbox :
simulation and experimental grasping tests show no
negative influence of a high gripper force to the battery cell M Gripper  M Friction M Spindle (2)
M DR   M Rotor  M Gearbox
contactors. Furthermore, the impacts of the external forces K ˜i i
FC are unknown, so that a high total force FGC is advisable.
The maximum deviation of the gripper is 8 mm of each where K is the spindle efficiency and i the gear ratio. The
jaw, the open/close time is about 0.04 sec. demanded motor power Preq can be calculated by
The crucial point of the gripper system is the gripper
finger and its jaw, especially, if an additional functionality Preq S ˜ ( M DR ˜ Z Rotor ) with
next to the original force transmission is needed. In case of
2 ˜S ˜ v ˜ i (3)
the lithium ion battery systems the finger on the one side Z Rotor
has to be as compact as possible by reason of the high P
packing density of the cells in the housing. On the other
side the jaws should be used to measure the voltage and where v is the movable gripper feed rate, P the spindle
inner resistance. Hence, the material of the gripper finger pitch and S is a safety factor. Moreover, several other
parameters of the system, such as the moments of inertia 4
has to be non-conductive, where the jaw material has to be
of the rotor or the gearbox are considered in the
conductive. The chosen design is shown in Figure 5. The
corresponding calculations e.g. of MSpindle. These detailed
coupling elements to the gripper body are comprised of
calculations are not shown in this contribution, as they are
Polypropylene (PP), the contact plates are of Aluminum
well known. The selected DC motor has a nominal torque
(Al), and both components are connected by a screw, of 28.8 mNm, the gearbox a gear reduction of 4.4:1, so that
which is the connection point for the wiring to the analog Preq of 5 W is secured.
PLC input.

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D. Entire System
The sections A to C show the main elements of the flexible
gripper systems separately. The entire system as a CAD
model is shown in Figure 7.
provided by a H-bridge circuit. In order to keep the system
reconfigurable not by changing the software, IPS are
favored over a dedicated position control. An optional
position control via encoder is also possible with the CAN
bus interface and the rear motor output shaft.

Figure 7: CAD model of the gripper system

The DC motor with its gearbox is directly mounted on

the linear axis. The fixed gripper is assembled at the body
housing of the motor. The movable gripper is installed at Figure 8: Control architecture
the sliding carriage. This entire subassembly is mounted on
a standardized profile rail. The inductive proximity sensors The software provides the gripper control and the data
(IPS) are also screwed at this rail, which supports the easy acquisition. The programming platform used to implement
retooling, as the desired positions of the movable gripper the control functionalities and the HMI visualization is
can be varied by hardware reconfiguration. An adapter to CoDeSys®, an open software for IEC conform PLC
the robot working platform serves as the interface to the programming.
industrial robot.
The PLC program integrates several functionalities, on
the one side to control the gripper and on the other side to
V. CONTROL ARCHITECTURE AND PROGRAMMING acquire the data referring to the cell status. The following
The development of a flexible gripper for robotic assisted Table 2 shows the main software functionalities, which are
(dis)assembly demands a high degree of standardization in directly related to hardware components.
order to provide a system, which meets the requirements of
industrial applicability. Next to the mechanical TABLE 2: MAIN SOFTWARE FUNCTIONALITIES
REFERRING TO HARDWARE COMPONENTS
components, it is also important for the control system.
Hence, the automation of the system by a PLC is beneficial, PLC control
Involved
(DI/DO=
especially referring to the standardization according to Functionality
components
digital In-/Output)
IEC 61131 and in particular the 3rd part of the standard the (s=sensor;
(AI/AO=
a=actuator)
programming languages, data types, configuration and analog In-/Output)
program organization units are regulated. This contributes a Open/close gripper Gripper (a) DO
Pneumatic valve (a) DO
transparent usage and flexibility of a system to be Gripper status IPS (s) DI
maintained and to be operated by different users or to Move linear axis Motor (a) DO
connect other automation hardware. Therefore, a PLC Position status IPS1…n (s) DI
control architecture is chosen to automate the gripper Voltage measurement Gripper jaws (s) AI
system and to enable an open interface to other devices,
such as an industrial robot. The derived control architecture Additionally, the main software related subroutines
is shown in Figure 8. In further works, after validating the (beside the measurement functionalities, see sec. IV) of the
feasibility of the system, the gripper control can be directly gripper control are described referring to the used
implemented in the corresponding RC.. programming language:
A modular PLC with additional remote I/Os is used and Motor control: as described before the motor is
connected via CAN bus. Several inductive proximity controlled by digital outputs of the PLC. These outputs
sensors (IPS) are integrated to check the gripper status and were activated via a RS flip-flop and under consideration
to detect the actual position. The DC motor is controlled by on the actual and desired position. The Figure 9 shows the
digital outputs. The reversal of rotation direction is

295
general realization of this functionality programmed by
functions blocks.
Furthermore, a HMI interface with all presented
features was programmed in order to simplify the initial
operations with the system and to provide an applicable
user interface. The main algorithm for the data derivation is
the possibility to choose between manual and automatic
measurement of the actual battery cell voltage. In manual
mode, the user can add a measured value to the database
array, whenever the corresponding button is pressed. In
automatic mode after each open/close operation of the
gripper a measurement is conducted. The values are
diagrammed in a bar plot. Furthermore, the mean of the
present random examination is calculated.
Figure 9: Motor control via IPS
VI. INTEGRATED BATTERY STATUS DETECTION
Automated in-process measurement of status data of a
system or product is a main feature to rationalize the
production process and to keep it on a high level of quality.
In the context of lithium ion battery system disassembly
this aspect is especially relevant for safety monitoring, if
the battery cells are not discharged at the beginning of the
disassembly process.
A. Actual voltage measurement
The hardware realization of the voltage measurement is
shown in Figure 4. The positive and negative terminal,
which are constituted by one jaw of each gripper, are
connected to an analog 0…10 V input of the PLC.
In order to measure the actual voltage A of the battery
cell the measurement value MV has to be converted
according to the resolution of the analog input RESAI. Eq.
(4) shows this relation:
A
Max. Voltage AI 10V
(4)
RES AI 214
296
The corresponding function block is diagrammed in
Figure 10 together with a watchdog function block, which
monitors the actual voltage and alerts the user, if a
measurement value is above or below critical limits. The
limits result from the danger of total discharge (BL) and
over-charge (UL) of the battery cell.
Figure 10: Measurement value conversion (top); watchdog function block
(buttom)
B. Internal resistance measurement
The aim of the internal resistance measurement is the
testing of the reliability of the cell and its usage property
considering
RI (- , SoC , I )  RImax (- , SoC , I ) (5)
where - is the temperature, SoC the state of charge and I
the current.
A further motivation the measure RI is to quantify one
aspect cell aging, which is attended by a decreasing RI and
lower capacity.
RI is mainly influenced by the materials of a battery cell,
namely electrolyte, active materials and arresters. On the
one hand the conductance of the electrolyte depends on the
temperature and increases strongly with a higher
temperature. The conductance of the metallic components
decreases lightly with lowering temperature one the other
hand. Hence, a gradual reduction of RI results from a higher
temperature. Thereby, dynamic parts of RI follow from the
chemical behavior of the electrolyte [10]. These aspects are
in detail:
x Limitation of the velocity of the ionic charge
transfer
x Necessity of activating the electrochemical reaction.
Typically the resistance of a component is defined by the
change of the current conduction
U 2  U1
R . (6)
I 2  I1
By reason of these dynamic dependencies of RI the
measurement result depends on the time period between the
measurement of U1 and U2. This gripper integrated RI
characterization does not aim to provide an absolute
measurement, but rather tends to a comparability of the
executed analysis.
The step function response of a test measurement is
diagrammed in Figure 11. Here the cell voltages at
different current charges and the characteristic values of U1
and U2 at a defined current level, which are necessary to
characterize RI, are shown.
The described integrated functionalities to enable an in-
process pre-characterization of a lithium ion battery cell in
addition to the originally function of the gripper system.
VII. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER RESEARCH
The contribution introduces the general aspect of the
recycling of large scale lithium ion batteries, the necessity
and major challenges to automate disassembly processes. In
order to rationalize the disassembly processes the design of
a robotic gripper system is described in detail. Thereby, the
hardware structure, the PLC based control architecture as
well as the software functionalities are shown.
Furthermore, the gripper system has integrated
functionalities to characterize a battery cell roughly.
Further research activities focus on the field tests of the
gripper system, the soft- and hardware implementation of
the resistance measurement as well as the integration to an
industrial robot.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully thank the Federal Ministry of the
Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Savety for
Figure 11: Step function response
supporting this work within the research project Lithorec –
A cost-effective and applicable way to determine RI with Recycling of Lithium Ion Batteries.
the given PLC architecture (see Figure 8) is to realize the
discharge by an power resistance RL and the current REFERENCES
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