Focus on the deep integration of cutting-edge technologies and application scenarios, and cultivate compound innovative talents
The four competitions are parallel, close to the hot demand of the industry, and oriented to future scientific research exploration and career development
Intelligent manufacturing is enabled by technological innovation to inject surging new momentum into the development of new quality productivity
The 2024 ABB Cup Smart Technology Innovation Competition, co-sponsored by ABB and the Chinese Society of Automation, officially kicked off today. This year’s competition contains four sets of questions, comprehensively focusing on artificial intelligence, digital twin, data modeling, human-computer interaction and other key technology fields related to intelligent manufacturing. With the theme of “Creating the Future with Intelligent Technology” and guided by solving specific industrial problems, the competition aims to promote learning through competition, improve ability through learning, and cultivate outstanding engineers with innovative spirit and practical ability.
Dr. Gu Chunyuan, Chairman of ABB China, said: “This year’s ABB Cup Intelligent Technology Innovation Competition closely follows the technology trend to design competition questions, broaden the track, and build an open platform for young students to give play to their imagination, practice new technologies in real application scenarios and specific industrial cases, hone new thinking, apply what they have learned, and lay a solid foundation for future participation in scientific and technological change and industrial development.”
Dr. Zhang Nan, Secretary-General of the Chinese Association of Automation, said: “China is accelerating the construction of national strategic talent force, striving to cultivate top-notch innovative talents, and build a team of excellent engineers and highly skilled personnel. The innovation competition jointly organized by the Chinese Society of Automation and ABB is highly in line with this direction. Relying on the synergy of industry, university and research, it can stimulate students’ enthusiasm for innovation, expand the boundaries of disciplinary knowledge, encourage cross-integration and cross-border innovation, accumulate the strength of highly skilled talents, and build the basis for high-quality development.”
Participants can participate in the competition individually or as a team, carry out bold ideas and active exploration according to the selected questions, exert unlimited imagination in the interdisciplinary integration, and overcome the application problems and challenges in the industrial scene:
Question 1: Cyber Building blocks – AI control application based on B&R’s “Amphibious” operating system
The deep integration of IT and OT is an inevitable trend of intelligent manufacturing, for example, through the seamless integration of Linux open source ecological software and industrial control systems, real-time tasks and non-real-time tasks will be two-way interaction, will provide strong support for industrial intelligence.
Participants in this competition need to use AI intelligent algorithm for image processing in Linux environment, divide the images given by the organizer into several blocks of different colors and specifications, and then achieve the minimum amount of blocks while ensuring the maximum similarity through reasonable planning; Finally, the logic and motion control programming of the actuator is realized based on B&R Automation Studio software, and the building blocks are assembled into original images.
Challenge 2: Guard Vanguard — Intelligent motor fault monitoring based on deep learning
Rotating bar breakage is one of the common faults in motor operation, which seriously affects motor performance, energy efficiency and even causes equipment damage. If it can be warned and diagnosed in advance, it will help reduce equipment damage and downtime, and improve motor reliability and work efficiency.
Participants in this competition need to solve problems such as signal processing, feature extraction and image recognition based on data from motor applications provided by ABB. Based on fault mechanism and machine learning/deep learning technology, they need to establish ABB motor rotating strip fracture monitoring model and give results based on validation set data.
Question 3: Interconnection Exploration — Innovation of digital interconnection application of robots and PLC
As the core equipment of industrial control system, programmable logic controller (PLC) plays an irreplaceable role in realizing the automatic control of production process. In order to improve production efficiency and quality, it is particularly important to realize efficient communication between robot and PLC.
This competition requires participants to use ABB’s professional robot simulation software RobotStudio and various PLC simulation software to design realistic and highly realistic simulation application cases to realize the OPC UA communication interaction between robots and PLC, so as to deepen the understanding of the working principle and communication mechanism between industrial robots and PLC.
Challenge 4: Smart Convergence — When robots meet mobile devices
The rapid iteration of mobile device technology has brought unlimited innovation possibilities to the robot industry. The integration of the two greatly improves the perception and adaptability of the robot, and provides strong support for the mobile Internet and intelligent interaction of the robot.
Participants are invited to give full play to their creativity, propose and implement innovative designs that integrate robots and mobile devices, such as using sensors, touch screens, powerful interconnection communication capabilities, etc., to empower robots and explore the application potential of robots. Or it can be used to solve engineering problems in robot applications such as robot calibration, human-computer interaction, perceptual diagnosis, trajectory planning and generation.
ABB Cup Smart Technology Innovation Competition will provide a broad platform for participating students to showcase their creativity and improve themselves. In the competition process, the contestants will learn, understand and apply the industry-leading industrial software, platforms and equipment, grasp the latest technology trends and application directions, and accumulate innovation experience and practice ability while testing their own knowledge, so as to gain points for future studies or job hunting. Some of the winning students will be invited to visit ABB factories and ABB booths at China International Industry Fair. In addition to winning the prize money, they will also have the possibility of internship opportunities or preferential employment opportunities for university recruitment positions.
