Students innovation contest draws millions of entries globally

The marine-air cross-agent vehicle series "No Cha" and the air-land amphibian non-manned vehicle "Wukong" were among the sci-tech products demonstrated during the China International College Students' Innovation Competition 2024 finals, held at the Minhang campus of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University from October 12-15.

The event received applications from 20.83 million college students from 5,406 universities of 153 countries and regions. They brought with them 5.14 million innovative inventions.

'No Cha' marine-air series

The student team from the College of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, took out the top prize with a score of 950 points.

"No Cha," the first marine-air cross-agent vehicle in the world, is a result of sea-air amphibian equipment research by the students.

Adopting aviation and navigation capacities, "No Cha" is able to traverse the sea and air freely.

Both "No Cha" IV and "No Cha" Sea Arrow were on display.

"No Cha" IV accomplished a global trial submarine journey and marine-air cross-agent journey around the maritime space of Boundary Island in south China's Hainan Province. Its record diving depth was 60 meters below sea level.

At the Pangong Tso lake in the Xizang Autonomous Region, the vessel climbed a height of 5,000 meters above sea level, making itself the first sea-air cross-agent vehicle able to operate in a plateau environment.

"No Cha" Sea Arrow is a novel tail-sitting delta-wing amphibian vehicle able to take off and land vertically while equipped with marine-air cross-agent capacity.

The aircraft is able to perform high-speed diving and emerging into or out of sea at a roughly stable speed, and is expected to offer more flexible and smarter solutions for oceanography research, natural resource exploration and environmental monitoring.

The "No Cha" series made a breakthrough in coordinating the two different agents of water and air. They are noted for their functions in both cross-agent aviation and submerging. In spite of wavy or windy weather conditions, the crafts perform neatly and efficiently.

Jin Yufei, a PhD student from the College of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, described the research journey as both challenging and painstaking.

"We experienced countless failures since the first sea trial in 2017," Jin said. "We retrieved the debris, analyzed it, and developed diverse algorithms under different wave and wind conditions. And finally, we made it in 2021.

"The contest is a good opportunity for us to review all the technologies, to demonstrate them, and to think about the blueprint," Jin added.

'Wukong' air-land vehicle

An undergraduate team from Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics aircraft innovation lab introduced their "Wukong" air-land amphibian non-manned vehicle to the CICSIC.

"Wukong" includes three innovative aviation plans and four trial aircraft that have fulfilled multiple aviation scenarios such as aerodynamic simulation and obstacle negotiation. The project is aimed to target rescue delays and poor accessibility in natural disaster rescues.

"Wukong" will mainly be applied in sky or on the ground as an emergency rescue vehicle. Its rotor and crawler designs enable it to perform non-manned flying above a disaster-stricken region, land at a precise location after ground scanning, and detect and collect data about trapped people in crawler mode.

"Currently, rotor-wing vehicles sustain a poor range and therefore fail to fulfil long-distance rescue journey," said Li Longlong, chief designer of the "Wukong" project. "So we add two foldable fixed wings and a tail on 'Wukong' to improve its range."

It was the team's second time participating in the CICSIC.

"We actually registered for the CICSIC last year," said Zhao Xin, a manager of the "Wukong" project. "We took with us a prototype of 'Wukong' last time. It didn't win any place in the competition because it still was in its early development stage. We made improvements and trialed the craft hundreds of time, and finally we brought the current version of 'Wukong' to this year's CICSIC and we are so excited."

"Wukong" won an undergraduate contest innovation golden prize in the group stage.

MindSpore smart solution

Among the contestants, quite a few projects were originally developed upon Huawei's Kunpeng and Shengteng AI neural network processing units. The company, to promote academy and industry coordination, was deeply involved into CICSIC, where it shared some of the sci-tech issues it had with bottlenecks.

Testing and repairs on aviation engines used to be traditional and manual, with low precision and complex processes.

To tackle that problem, the School of Aerospace Engineering Xiamen University sent its students team to offer a MindSpore smart solution, based on Huawei's MindSpore AI visual algorithm. With an edge-cloud collaboration processing ability, the solution is able to achieve a computing efficiency eight times the normal speed with an increase in precision of 15 percent.

"We use a borescope to collect visual images inside an engine, then send them into our aerospace motor deficiency detecting system," said Yu Keyi, a graduate student from the school. "It shows immediately, for example, some fissures or loss in components, which will help the maintenance engineers to judge rightly and act accordingly."

Recently, a MindSpore innovative center was launched cooperatively by Minhang district government, Shanghai Lingang Economic Development Group, Huawei Technologies Co, and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. The center will develop China's own AI training framework and cultivate an AI eco-system.

In addition, a college students' sci-tech innovation exhibition was set up during the CICSIC. Twenty-eight projects, on strategies, appliances, and global and future influence, were displayed.

More projects on display

The strategy zone displayed projects on aerospace, information technology, new materials and high-end equipment, such as the "DeepLang AI" from Tsinghua University, which is a new-generation information smart processing platform.

Projects on display at the appliance sector served agriculture, the service industry and regional economies.

Lanzhou University's grassland repair project tackled ecological issues such as grassland degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and rampant weeds. The project helped repair 200,000 mu (13,333 hectares) of grassland and create an increase of 450 tons in annual forage grass for herdsmen.

The global and future influence sector highlighted projects from high school students and international students. The "AI Visual Recognition Road Accident Warning Robot" project from Guangya High School in Guangdong Province aimed to reduce secondary accidents caused by manual allocation of road accident signs.