EAST LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - At Michigan State University’s Recycling Center, a new team member is making quick work of bottles, cans, and other recyclables, and it’s not a student or staff member.

Murphy, an AI robot equipped with a vision system, central processing unit, and mechanical arm, can scan and sort items on a conveyor belt in seconds.

“We equate it to a human, but it has a vision system or eyes, it has a brain, or the central processing unit, and then it has an arm that’s actually what you would think of the robot itself, where it actually picks up the material,” said David Smith with the MSU Surplus Store & Recycling Center.

Murphy can make up to 80 picks per minute. While human sorters can work slightly faster for short bursts, the robot can maintain its pace much longer.

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