Source: ETDZ Campus

By JingJiayi, ZangSiyu

Dalian is a city born and nurtured by the sea. From September 17 to 20,Underwater Robot Picking Contest (URPC) 2020 and the Summit Forum on Artificial Intelligence and Underwater Robots 2020were held in Dalian.

URPC was initiated by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and has been organized since 2017. It is the first contest of intelligent robots in a real offshore environment in the world. It has become a leading high-end contest in the field of underwater detection and agile operation. As one of the major hosts of previous contests, Dalian University of Technology (DUT) has been supporting the contest.

In this competition, 20 teams from Chinese universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises participated in the offline man-machine cooperative picking group and self-picking group, and 290 teams and 170 individuals signed up to the online target recognition group. Compared with previous ones, this competition was held in real offshore water, where the condition is volatile and complicated, making the competition more technically challenging. Therefore, the intelligence of underwater robots is highlighted.

In the end,the team OurEDA from DUT won the first prize of the self-picking group, and made a breakthrough from “zero picking” over the last three contests to picking 11 sea products this time. The team Starfish from Dalian Maritime University won the first prize in the man-machine cooperative picking group, and the team from Peking University won the first prize in the target recognition group. In addition,the team “Chi Jia Hong” from DUT won the third prize of the man-machine cooperative picking group.

The Summit Forum of Artificial Intelligence and Underwater Robots was on at the same time. Five academicians, over 100 well-known experts and scholars including Changjiang Scholars, Distinguished Young Scholars, and Excellent Young Scholars, and more than 150 industry representatives were invited to Dalian for academic exchanges.

The contest was broadcast live by CCTV, which makes the contest more educational, more enjoyable, and more popular.

Photo: Du Jia

Editor: Li Xiang