RoboMaster 2019 ICRA AI Challenge Team

Host department: Department of Computer Science

Supervisor: Dr. Jia Pan (Department of Computer Science)

Background of the project

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are two promising directions in the future. RoboMaster ICRA AI challenge is an AI-based robotics challenge for university students aimed to inspire AI and robotics research for young engineers and scientists. This project is the first attempt for HKU to attend this competition which creates experiential learning opportunities for computer science, statistics, mathematics major undergraduate students to get in touch with cutting-edge robotics and AI technology as well as learning team working skills.

Hence, this team is culturally diversified and consists of students from different backgrounds and countries, e.g., Mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and India.

Project details and process

From Oct 2019 to Jan 2020: Planning for development.

From Feb 2020 to April 2020: Phase one development and finished fully functional code framework version 1.

From June 2020 to August 2020: Phase two development, refine the version one design and prepared algorithm for a virtual competition.

The BMFA payload challenge 5 took place in BMFA Buckminster, Sewstern Lane, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG33 5RW and last for 3 days from 31st May 2019 to 2nd June 2019.

Previous image

Next image

Project result

The competition has finished and all the development plans have been well documented for future seasons, although the competition was carried out in an online algorithmic competition format, the team has completed every required and won an award. — Excellent Award in Motion Planning Group, Finalist.

Student learning and achievements

Students have learned robotics and AI-related topics, collaboration skills, as well as how to tackle a series of challenging and ill-posed problems.

Future plan

The team will attend a competition next year, as well as carry out related engineering research related to multi-agent decision making, agile motion planning, and control.

Sharing by supervisors

This challenge provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate students to learn the frontier of AI and robotics from practice. Unlike traditional computer science courses/projects where students only need to have access to a computer and focus on the virtual world, this competition allows the students to see how the algorithms they developed can change the real world.

Sharing by students

“It is an amazing journey to found this team and gather many peers who shared the same interest as me. It is challenging in many perspectives, but whenever we tackle some problems with interesting algorithms, it really shows us that those math and logic have their own beauty. This competition helped me to make my mind to be an AI and robotics researcher in the future.“

Chen Sirui Eric, Team leader