As the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is approaching, to secure the water quality of Guanting Reservoir, one of the water resources of the Games, has become an urgent.

Recently, a water quality monitoring unmanned surface vehicle, made by a research team from Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP), Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), together with the Beijing Municipal Water Authority and Suzhou Feichi Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., solved this problem. Now this intelligent vehicle has been in trial operation in Guanting Reservoir.

"We have been working on this project for more than 3 years,” said Dr. YU Daoyang, a physicist in ISSP, “The existing surface water monitoring system in China is mainly based on on-line monitoring of fixed monitoring stations and manual sampling laboratory analysis. This new instrument has been much improved in many aspects.”

The microfluidic sampling system basing on the flow path precise control technology ensured the fast, in-situ and online monitor for unmanned vessels. Even in complex environment, the unmanned ship multi-mode control system, cross-platform control system can ensure the stability and reliability of it. Other technical problems, like synchronicity of various detection methods in time and space, the anti-counterfeiting of the detection data, were also solved thanks to efforts of this devoted collaborating team.

Made of high quality stainless steel to prevent corrosion, this vehicle is 3.6 meters long and 1.8 meters wide. It’s motivated by pure electricity and can last more than 8 hours. The maximum speed is as high as 10km/h, twice as much as an adult’s walking speed, and its 300 kilograms load would amount to the weight of a big lion.

“This is the largest water quality monitoring unmanned surface vehicle In China,” Dr. YU explained, “ with the most complete functions and advanced intelligentized software.”

The team has successfully made a series of water surface robots, including river and lake chief wisdom management platform, intelligent cleaning water robot, water ecological precision repair and process management, etc.

Featuring on fast movement and self-navigation, the application of the products will significantly improve the reservoir water environmental regulation efficiency, accuracy and intelligent technology.

a water quality monitoring unmanned surface vehicle helps to improve the reservoir water environment (Image by YU Daoyang) 

Contact:

ZHAO Weiwei
Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (http://english.hf.cas.cn/)
Email: annyzhao@ipp.ac.cn