Robot battles: XJTLU part of team placing ninth globally

The combined forces of an international undergraduate student team from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and the University of Liverpool earned ninth place in the final match of the 2019 RoboMaster Robotics Competition last month in Shenzhen.

Nearly 7,000 students from 173 universities around the world participated in the overall competition, in which the students' remote-controlled, specialised robots had to cooperate to launch projectiles at the opposing team’s robots and base.

The team composed of XJTLU’s G-Master club and the University of Liverpool’s Coding and Robotics Club also scored both third prize and the Outstanding Aesthetic Design Award in the regional competition that led up to the final.

G-Master’s professional guidance during their year-long preparation for the contest included support from members of XJTLU’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Industry Research Institute.

“After almost a year of research and development, our team members independently made seven robots with different functions,” said G-Master’s instructor, Dr Chun Zhao (pictured first from the right, back row, below) of XJTLU’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

According to Professor Eng Gee Lim, head of XJTLU's Artificial Intelligence Industry Research Institute, the competition provided students the opportunity to exercise their education.

“Through participation in the RoboMaster competition, students acquired valuable practical skills and training in strategic thinking, enabling them to combine theory with practice to make intelligent robots that can face intense competition,” Professor Lim said.

Zhanhua Zhang, the team leader of the G-Master club and a Year Two undergraduate from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering credited the team’s dedication and collaboration for their achievements.

“We could not have achieved these good results without the endurance, interchange of ideas, close cooperation and commitment of all the team members,” Zhang said.

The competition was organised by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, All-China Students’ Federation and Shenzhen People’s government and hosted by DJI, a consumer drone manufacturer.

Story provided by the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, edited by Luyun Shi
Translated by Boqiang Xiao, edited by Tamara Kaup