Drone design for Circularity

Abstract The transition toward a circular economy requires systematic design strategies that incorporate disassembly needs into product development, making end-of-life processes more efficient and cost-effective. While Design for Disassembly (DfD) supports reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling, its manual execution is often inefficient and expensive. Design for Automated Disassembly (DfAD) extends DfD by adding requirements for robotic handling, including standardised joining techniques, improved accessibility, and simplified processes, enabling scalable and economically feasible circular strategies. This paper applies and refines DfAD principles for a lightweight and complex mechatronic product—a drone. A two-stage analytical approach combining Hotspot Mapping and Disassembly Mapping has been developed to assess the disassembly process and systematically identify critical design weaknesses. These insights have been validated and expanded through an interdisciplinary expert workshop, leading to specific design adaptations guided by DfAD. The results show how DfAD can be used early in product development to improve automation potential and process efficiency. This study contributes to the theoretical and methodological development of DfAD and offers transferable insights for extending existing guidelines from large-scale systems to smaller, lightweight mechatronic products.