- 24 contestant teams stood out from more than 800 entrants to win the final awards
- Young talents praised by judges for outstanding performance and innovation ability
- Expanding the open platform to enhance business-school cooperation and support the cultivation of future engineers
The 2023 ABB Cup Innovation Contest, co-hosted by ABB and the Chinese Association of Automation (CAA), came to a successful conclusion on September 20, 2023. Out of the more than 300 teams (over 800 students in total) from nearly 200 universities and vocational schools across China, 24 teams won the final top three prizes in the two competitions – AI-based modeling for predicting the temperature of IGBT in drives and Robot programming and remote control for domino. Congratulations to the winning students and teachers for their outstanding performance, and thanks to the judges and partners for their hard work.
Themed Intelligent Technologies for the Future, the contest involves areas such as power electronics, machine learning, mathematical modeling, industrial robotics, digital twin and human-computer interaction. The aim is to promote the open and innovative thinking among young people, enhance their ability to solve real-world problems by exploring interdisciplinary approaches, and better support the cultivation of local innovative talents.
Dr. Chunyuan Gu, Chairman of ABB China, congratulated the winning students for their outstanding performance, and thanked the judges and partners for their great support. He said, "Over the past eighteen years, the ABB Cup Innovation Contest has adhered to its long-term goal while constantly upgrading with new topics and new formats, becoming an open platform for technology exchange and a fertile ground for the growth of young engineering talents. We look forward to joining hands with all parties to help ignite young students’ passion for innovation and enhance their ability of interdisciplinary research and application to meet the new demands of the future."
Dr. Nan Zhang, Secretary of CAA, said at the award ceremony, "China’s new engineering construction emphasizes the interdisciplinary integration, combining science, humanities and engineering. In line with this trend, the innovation contest co-hosted by ABB and CAA encourages participants to break down barriers between disciplines and innovate across boundaries, so as to cultivate outstanding engineering talents who are able to solve problems through interdisciplinary research and meet the needs of future development of industries."
The Embassy of Switzerland in China has been the strong supporter of the contest over the years. Sacha Bachmann, Consul General of Switzerland in Shanghai sent a video message of congratulations. He said, "Innovation is Switzerland's lifeblood. The Swiss innovation landscape is our recipe for success. As a pioneer in the emerging technologies, ABB has been advancing the revolution and development of many industries in China and the world. ABB has had impressive track record of doing business and cultivating interdisciplinary talents in China. I wish ABB further successful innovation and I congratulate all the winning teams."
AI-based modeling for predicting the temperature of IGBT in drives
As a new competition designed for the first time this year, the “AI-based modeling for predicting the temperature of IGBT in drives” asks contestants to solve a specific challenge in application by realizing digital value. Based on the data provided by ABB from real industrial scenarios, the contestants are expected to use machine learning, big data prediction and other technologies to analyze the data and build a predictive model in Python to monitor and estimate the temperature fluctuation of IGBT, a key power semiconductor of ABB drive in real time with high accuracy and fast response.
86 contestant teams with 194 participants from 51 institutions across China participated in this competition. The panel of judges evaluated and scored the submissions in terms of model accuracy, innovation, feature engineering and other dimensions. Five teams were shortlisted for the final round of on-site defense. After comprehensive evaluation by the experts from ABB China Motion Business Area, Shunyu Wu and Ziyi Gan from Shanghai Jiaotong University won the first prize, four teams won the second and third prizes, and 13 teams won the excellence awards. Click to view the winner list.
Luping Qi, Lead Business Manager, ABB Motion, China, praised the organization of the competition and the performance of the contestants. He said, "We are very pleased to see so many students actively participating in this competition. We hope that this contest can provide a platform for university students to apply the methodologies and theoretical knowledge to production practice, learn how to use and analyze data in real industrial scenarios, and find ways to solve real production problems under non-ideal or data-missing conditions. Participants will gain valuable experience in this process and broaden their knowledge of drive technology and industries. At the same time, their innovative ideas can also provide us with new inspiration. It is also a platform for outstanding students to showcase their talents, and for the society to support the cultivation of future engineers with innovation and interdisciplinary capability."
Robot programming and remote control for dominos
This year's Innovation Contest provided an excellent platform for robotics talents to showcase their skills. In the Challenge of Robot programming and domino remote control, participants used RobotStudio®, ABB’s offline robotics programming and simulation tool, to build digital twin workstations, develop software functions, and remotely control an industrial robot to place and push a certain number of dominoes. This helped them gain a better understanding of the robotic software, improve their skills of function development and remote control of industrial robots.
Through strict evaluation and scoring of the submissions in the preliminary round, the judge panel shortlisted 9 teams for the final round at ABB Robotics Mega Factory in Shanghai. After a fierce competition, Xiang Zhou from Dongguan Science and Technology School, Hangtian Xu and Dunxiao Zhuang from Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, and Jinhong Fu and Hailong Chen from Shenzhen Polytechnic University won the first prize, while 6 other teams won the second prize, 10 teams won the third prize, and 17 teams won the excellence award. Click to view the winner list.
Angie Luo, Local Division Manager, ABB Robotics, China (ad-interim) and Local Division Finance Manager, Robotics, China, said, "With the increasing automation in the manufacturing industry, the demand for robotics talents has become more urgent in recent years. I am very pleased to see so many students of the younger generation actively participating in the robotics competition and excelling in this both theoretical and hands-on challenge by using ABB's offline programming simulation software, RobotStudio, combined with digital twin technology. I hope that the contestants will use this competition as a starting point for continued learning and further exploration of innovative applications of robot vision and the combination of robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. ABB Robotics is very focused on the education sector, which is why we are expanding our education offering with the new launch of the IRB 1090. I hope we can seize this opportunity to promote the wider application of robotics and inject new energy into the development of the robotics industry."
To better support the contestants, ABB provided related software tools and technical training materials, and organized a series of livestreaming forums and Q&A sessions. The organizing committee also invited technical experts to visit several universities in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Lanzhou and other cities to communicate with students face to face.
There are no limits to innovation. The student representatives invited to the award ceremony visited ABB’s exhibition at the China International Industry Fair. They experienced the latest technologies in robotics, motion and machine automation, and also took the opportunity to interact with technical experts at the booths.
With a history of 18 years, ABB Cup Innovation Contest, co-organized by ABB and CAA, has attracted more than 20,000 contestants, with strong support from industry associations, experts and Swiss Embassy in China. The goal of the Contest is to support the cultivation of innovative and skilled personnel and to help them better adapt to the smart manufacturing processes and more diversified industrial application scenarios in the future.
ABB is a technology leader in electrification and automation, enabling a more sustainable and resource-efficient future. The company’s solutions connect engineering know-how and software to optimize how things are manufactured, moved, powered and operated. Building on more than 130 years of excellence, ABB’s ~105,000 employees are committed to driving innovations that accelerate industrial transformation.
