US 12,030,087 B2
Apparatus and method for assigning a material value score to a waste printed circuit board or a portion thereof and system for sorting waste printed circuit boards
Markus Firsching, Erlangen (DE); Alexander Ennen, Erlangen (DE); Steffen Rüger, Erlangen (DE); Johannes Leisner, Erlangen (DE); Wladislaw Benner, Weinheim (DE); and Malte Vogelgesang, Weiterstadt (DE)
Assigned to Fraunhofer-Geselleshaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Munich (DE); and Technishe Universitaet Darmstadt, Darmstadt (DE)
Filed by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Munich (DE); and Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Darmstadt (DE)
Filed on Oct. 10, 2022, as Appl. No. 18/045,423.
Claims priority of application No. 21202008 (EP), filed on Oct. 11, 2021; and application No. 22150804 (EP), filed on Jan. 10, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0109956 A1, Apr. 13, 2023
Int. Cl. B07C 5/34 (2006.01); H05K 3/22 (2006.01)
CPC B07C 5/3416 (2013.01) [B07C 2501/0054 (2013.01); H05K 3/22 (2013.01); H05K 2203/178 (2013.01)] 11 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus for assigning a material value score to a waste printed circuit board or a portion thereof, comprising
a microprocessor, a programmable computer system or a programmable logic device configured to determine the material value score and perform the determination on the basis of analyzing a dual energy or spectral x-ray image of the waste printed circuit board or the portion thereof using a machine learning module,
wherein the machine learning module is trained based on a set of data of annotated components, wherein the annotated components represent annotations of representative components of WPCBs.