12 Universities in Tianjin Vow to Promote Intelligent Vehicles

On March 25, the opening ceremony of an AI R&D special project (a sub-project of the Tianjin Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Program) was launched on Tianjin University’s Peiyangyuan Campus. A series of intelligent equipment including unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned road-rollers, all-terrain vehicles and intelligent buses made their debut during the ceremony. Behind those intelligent devices is an unmanned “Aeroamphibious” Research Team, a multidisciplinary team comprised of over 100 postgraduates from 45 research groups in 12 universities in Tianjin.

The AI project attempts to explore a new approach for the cultivation of high-level talents, as well as multidisciplinary and university-industry integration. Based on an advanced public transportation system and 5G edge cloud technology of Unicom in Tianjin Haihe Education Park, the scientific research team will make collaborative innovation in terms of four major technologies including intelligent vehicle, intelligent road, human-computer interaction and vehicle cloud cooperation.

In the ceremony, on top of an agreement reached among Tianjin Education Commission, Tianjin University and Tianjin Unicom, a 5G Joint Innovation Center was unveiled, aiming to ensure the further development of the AI project.

According to Professor Xie Hui from Tianjin University, the project leader，the project will not only serve as an integrated platform for scientific research, but also address talent cultivation and university - industry cooperation in line with new engineering education strategy. “The project products will be applied in building a smart campus regarding its security and traffic control. They are also applicable in search and rescue efforts, the dam construction in highland regions and other harsh conditions,” said Professor Xie, adding that these unmanned aeroamphibious devices were expected to realize all-around vision and radar patrol of the campus by June.

It is learnt that Tianjin University has launched a TJU-AI Improvement Plan that promotes a multidisciplinary approach to develop AI technology. Demand-oriented and talent-cultivation directed, the plan tries to break subject barriers through a series of innovative reforms, and promote the integration between AI and other disciplines

By Zhang Qingluan

Editor: Eva Yin