Underwater robots unveil advanced capabilities in tough conditions

Compared to the competition's early years, he said the technical level of participating teams has improved markedly. Robots now widely use large learning models, and their recognition and response speeds have increased significantly.

This year's event featured four competition tracks: human-machine collaborative grasping group, the autonomous grasping group, the underwater communication group, and the special mission. Organizers said the system covers the full chain of basic research and development, key technology breakthroughs, scenario applications and creative innovation.

Severe weather this year brought strong winds and waves, greatly increasing the challenge. Yet teams rose to the occasion and delivered impressive results.

"Our team achieved a good result, winning first place in both human-machine collaboration and autonomous grasping," said Meng Guanchen, a doctoral student at DUT. He said the team would use the valuable experience from the competition to further improve its underwater robot.

Since its launch in 2017, the national contest has become the highest-level, largest and most broadly representative professional science and innovation event in China's underwater robotics field.

Over the past decade, it has brought together more than 60 universities and research institutes at home and abroad, more than 200 research teams and over 1,500 contestants. More than 150 invention patent results have been commercialized, as the event continues to help promote the tackling of key core technologies in marine intelligent equipment.