Virtual platform for prototype implementation of flexible automated disassembly systems

The society demands are forcing manufacturing industry to reuse and recycle the products at the end of their life for ecological and economical reasons. Therefore, the design of flexible automated disassembly systems is becoming an imperative issue. These designs are usually performed using widespread simulators which are limited in their application to flexible automatic disassembly systems. Thus, new features are required to design, simulate, control and supervise this kind of systems. The aim of this paper is to introduce a virtual platform including the features needed to design and implement a prototype of a flexible automated disassembly system. Several disassembly processes are implemented in the platform showing its possibilities to be considered as a complete tool for prototyping flexible automated disassembly systems.The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the “Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología” (CICYT), the local government of the “Generalitat Valenciana” and the European Commission for partial funding of this work, under projects number DPI2005-09133-C03-01 and DPI2005 08732-C02-02, project reference GV06/115 and European Project number 500095-2 and “Fondo Europeo Desarrollo Regional” (FEDER).Peer reviewe