The World Robot Conference sponsored by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Association for Science and Technology and The People's Government of Beijing City was held on October 21-25, 2016, at International Exhibition and Convention Center of Yizhuang in Beijing. The International Underwater Robot Competition 2016, which was an important component of Conference, was jointly held by International League of Underwater Robot (ILUR) and the China Institute of Electronics simultaneously. Professor Xie Guangming, who is the Chairman of ILUR and the founder of this competition.

The International Underwater Robot Competition which is the first international robot competition established by the Chinese. It has been held eight times in Beijing, Taiyuan, Jinan, Chengdu, Nanjing, Ningbo, Chaozhou, and Lanzhou since 2008, respectively. It returns to Beijing after eight years later and is absorbed as a core competition of the World Robot Conference. This competition mainly focuses on the practical application of underwater robot and contains all kinds of games and demonstration projects. The competition is divided into scientific research and industrial applications, including water polo, synchronized swimming, pipeline inspection, seabed exploration and ocean fishery. It can be said that this competition is a perfect combination between science and academic research.

The number of teams of taking part in this competition is 531, and they are from 109 schools such as United States, the Netherlands, South Korea, China and so on. They are in race to 19 sub-game of 6 games with more than 1,300 persons. The numbers of participating schools, teams and people all hit record high. After four days of competition, teams such as Peking University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Ocean University of China and Taiyuan University of Technology win championships for various games, respectively. Seminar of development in Underwater Robot and forum of Robot Entrepreneur also are held at the same time.

Qinglin Jia comes to the scene and communicates with Prof. Xie Guangming about underwater robot technology

During the International Underwater Robot Competition, Jia Qinglin, who was the 16th and 17th members of the Politburo Standing Committee and the 10th and 11th chairman of CPPCC, comes to the scene and communicates with Prof. Xie Guangming about underwater robot technology. He is very concerned on technology of intelligent biomimetic robot, and points out that the development of marine and aerospace technology is slow in our country. He hopes that all the researchers in PKU as well as the other institutions work hard to get a breakthrough as soon as possible.

The ILUR is dedicated to the development of robot in China. It promotes the development and innovation of robot and automation technology by organizing international underwater robot competition and technical Seminar. In order to make more and more people, especially young persons, to understand and enjoy robots; this competition is not only to deliver scientific knowledge but also attract many fans of robot. In the future, the ILUR towards to write a new chapter in accelerated development of robotic technology.

PKU NEWS：http://pkunews.pku.edu.cn/xwzh/2016-10/31/content_295574.htm