7/31/2019

The 6th Delta Advanced Automation Design Contest - Grand Prizes
Go to Sun Yat-sen University, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University

The 6th Delta Advanced Automation Design Contest (Delta Cup) has just been held at Delta's Wujiang Plant in Jiangsu, China, from July 24-28. A total of 79 teams from 72 colleges and universities in China, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Vietnam, and the Netherlands earned a place in the final contest. After two days of fierce competition, the winners of the Grand Prize, the highest honor, went to:
• Sun Yat-sen University “Team Chen-Yu Wen 2.0” (Taiwan) which built a Reinforcement Learning Robotic Arm with speech recognition and object detection system
• Fontys University of Applied Sciences “Team Fontys Smart Wrist” (the Netherlands) which applied two wedge shaped disks mounted on bearings for independent rotation control.
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University “Team Jiao Chi” (China) which presented a Self-organizing Flexible Production Comprehensive Optimization System under an intelligent manufacturing scheme


This year, the CTO Special Prize is awarded to Professor Bai-yu Tseng from Taipei University of Technology for his long-term support and cooperation with Delta. Professor Tseng has led student participation in the Delta Cup for the past five years since 2014. The teams adopted Delta's IA products to build outstanding smart manufacturing model line demos. With experience, the teams led by Professor Tseng have received several awards every year. Delta presented an articulated robot as gift to thank Professor Tseng's efforts. Under his guidance, “Team Engraved on Your Heart” from the Taipei University of Technology won the First Prize.

The 6th Delta Advanced Automation Design Contest adopted the concept of advanced industrial automation development from Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing. Under the theme of “Seeking Smart IIoT Talents”, the competition included three major categories: Innovative Machines, Smart Factory, and Better Future Living. This year, the 79 teams that earned a place in the final contest included 62 teams from China, 8 from Taiwan, 3 from Thailand, 3 from India, 2 from Vietnam, and 1 from the newly participating the Netherlands, which elevated the competition to become more international in scope. Aside from the Grand Prize, there were First Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize and CTO Special Award presented among the other 76 teams at the award ceremony on July 26. (Please go to http://www.delta-china.com.cn/event/deltacup/2019/winnerslist.asp for detailed information.)

At the ceremony, Mr. Andy Liu, the General Manager of Delta's Industrial Automation Business Group said, “The Delta Advanced Automation Design Contest is an important event for Delta to fulfill corporate social responsibility and cultivate new talents with industry-university cooperation. Through the contest, Delta helps students majoring in industrial automation to utilize their creativity and theory learning in real applications. The demos of the 6th-year event showed many innovative designs and demonstrate that this contest uncovers student potential. We believe these participants will become top talents in their future careers.”

Yancey Hai, Chairman of Delta Electronics attended this year's contest. He said at the opening ceremony, “Talent is the key factor in building smart cities and accelerating the social and economic development of humanity. Delta has faced talent shortage challenges during its own process of smart manufacturing transformation. The Delta Cup Advanced Automation Design Contest is a way to conquer this challenge. Combining Delta's advanced smart manufacturing concepts and technology with cooperation between governmental organizations, corporations, and universities, we hope to cultivate and find more talent. From previous experience, this contest is a great platform for students to understand the trends of smart manufacturing with real practices.”

Min Wu, the Committee Member of the National Steering Committee for Undergraduate Teaching of Automation Specialties indicated that as society evolves knowledge from classrooms and textbooks are not enough for students. They need to be exposed to the latest techniques and products of the leading manufacturing corporations. For six consecutive years, the Delta Advanced Automation Design Contest has been closely tied with industry trends as an excellent platform for students to apply theory in real, innovative, and creative applications. In fulfilling the goals of the Ministry of Education, Wujiang is revolutionizing vocational education, promoting industry-university cooperation, and elevating the overall talent development standard.”

Smart Manufacturing Talents Reveal New Concepts to the World
During the 4-day final contest, contestants needed to pass two stages including a team competition and a championship contest followed by a proposal introduction, a demo kit display, and a direct Q&A session with the judges. At the team competition, all 79 contestants presented their ideas and demonstrated their demo kits' functions and features to all the judges. Finally, after thorough review, 15 teams out of the 79 were chosen to compete in the championship contest, where they conducted a project presentation, an on-site demo, and a Q&A session.

At the event, the projects of many teams revealed creative and outstanding concepts. Project highlights included:

Sun Yat-sen University “Team Chen-Yu Wen 2.0”: The Reinforcement Learning Robotic Arm with Speech Recognition and Object Detection System (Grand Prize)
The system integrates robotic grips, speech recognition, object inspection system and deep learning technology to achieve automated equipment learning. The speech recognition algorithm receives speech commands and triggers a SCARA robot to grip the same object from different positions. The vision inspection algorithm adopts deep learning to define the best gripping position based on the balance angle of the object. The reinforcement learning technology optimizes the stability and precision of the robot during task execution. The system features deep learning technology, and is highly applicable and practical in cosmetics manufacturing and other industries.

Fontys University of Applied Sciences “Team Fontys Smart Wrist”: Fontys Smart Wrist Demokit (Grand Prize)
The Smart Wrist adopts a Codesys motion control system to drive two sets of servo drives and motors, and controls the 360 degree rotation of two independent wedge disks mounted on bearings. The ROS robotic system achieves robot joint motions and precise horizontal control. It is flexible and extendable. The wrist can be applied in medical surgeries and the robot arm extends the end axis. The advanced robotic technology and highly flexible extendibility is regarded as a practical and potential solution.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University “Team Jiao Chi”: Self-organizing Flexible Production Comprehensive Optimization System Under
Intelligent Manufacturing Scheme (Grand Prize)

This solution adopts Delta's PLC, servo system, smart sensor, machine vision system to connect an information management platform for a flexible production line. The production line identifies the product category with QRcode on the boxes by a machine vision system. It then delivers the products to the assigned conveyor with servo system. The solution is able to drive a distributed system and collaborate on a control algorithm to execute multiple orders quickly under motion (conveying). Its optimized platform achieves smart self-scheduling and control for an automated, flexible, and highly efficient smart manufacturing production line.

RV College of Engineering, India “Team the Neat Fleet”: Solar Panel Cleaning Robot (First Prize)
This team entered the final round receiving the most votes from all participants. The solution offers solar panel cleaning equipment that adopts Delta's PLC to collect and monitor output power, and compare with the optimum calculated by the parameters. If lower, then the solar panel is regarded as dusty and another PLC controls the AC motor drive and motors to automatically drive a spiral brush and clean the panel. The PLC also controls the speed of the brush motor. This eco-friendly system is powered by solar energy. It uses WLAN to transfer the operation status to a cloud platform for monitoring via Wifi. This green smart solar panel cleaning solution saves water without additional power supplies. The completeness and innovation drew the attention of many judges and won First Prize.

The CTO Special Award winner Professor Bai-yu Tseng from Taipei University of Technology said “I felt lots of pressure participating in the contest in previous years. However, recently the Delta Cup means more to me. Every year, we can share our efforts for adopting Delta's IA products in the demos with teams from other countries. The interaction between the teams is beneficial for us.” This year, the team led by Professor Tseng won First Prize:

Taipei University of Technology “Team Engraved on Your Heart”: Smart Laser Engraving Unmanned Manufacturing Management Factory (First Prize)
Based on multiple Smart Laser Engraving CNC machines, this project integrates Robots, Machine Vision, CNC controllers, Conveyor Tracking, together with an internet ordering system and real-time MES data for production scheduling and inventory. It achieves smart manufacturing by setting up an unmanned factory to customize laser-engraving tags.

This year, a team from the Netherlands made its debut at the Delta Cup. The Dutch teachers and students said that the variety of creative and advanced automation technology and interactions with students from all countries is a precious and unique experience. Winning the Grand Prize for participating for the first time encourages them to join Delta Cup again next year.

Enriching College-Industry Cooperation and Nurturing Future Talents
During the final contest, Delta organized a variety of activities and keynote speeches, including a tour of a smart demonstration line and laboratories at the Delta Wujiang Plant, a teachers' seminar for experience sharing, and a career forum. Through these activities, Delta hoped to create opportunities for more interaction between colleges and industry, and information exchanges between teammates as well as other contestants, for a positive influence on future talent cultivation and development.

The world's first 8K environmental documentary “Water with Life in Taiwan” was shown to all participants at the award ceremony. A collaboration between the Delta Foundation and NHK Enterprises of Japan, this documentary reveals the importance of environmental sustainability. Delta's 35,000-lumen 8K projector presented various features of Taiwan's waterscape and natural beauty. The documentary raises the awareness of students and teachers to the impact of global warming and human activities on water and the related environment, and spotlights our precious water resources.

As a world-class provider of smart manufacturing, Delta has improved industrial technology while sharing its experience and techniques with talented students and academics through Delta's Advanced Automation Design Contest every year since 2014. Delta is dedicated to finding and cultivating more talent for its “Automation for a Changing World”.

News Source:IABG Marcom