The torch relay for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games was carried by 416 torchbearers over a distance of more than 20 kilometers between Beijing Winter Olympic Park and Shougang Park on Tuesday. The relay included the first-ever underwater relay between robots, an amphibious robot, and an underwater robot.
China news service reported, the Shenyang Institute of automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as "Shenyang automation) 2, news, games park in Beijing games torch relay in 2022, which led to the development of the robot to realize robot underwater torch relay for the first time in Olympic history, reveals the Olympic Games and the combination of science and technology.
During the relay, torchbearers passed the Olympic flame to an amphibious robot, which held a burning torch and slid down the curling track into the ice hole. The underwater variable structure robot drew close to it, and the two robots held the torch and lit the ignition accurately underwater. An underwater variable structure robot emerges from a hole in the ice holding a torch to pass the Olympic flame to the next torchbearer.
In order to adapt to the on-site environment and ensure that the docking moment is secure, the field team stationed in Beijing Winter Olympics Park in advance, the robot torch relay task for several rounds of optimization, in 25 days carried out nearly 100 tests, further improve the control performance and stability of the robot.
A robot prepares for the underwater torch relay at the Beijing Winter Olympics Park in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 2, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)
According to The Beijing Daily, in order to make the gas fuel burn stably underwater, the flame is surrounded by a method similar to the aero-engine air film thermal protection to form a dynamic "protective cover", overcoming the technical difficulties of green energy burning in the underwater, so that the Olympic flame reproduces the underwater burning scenery.
Underwater fire transmission presents even greater technical challenges. Under the strong cooling effect of the surrounding water environment, the underwater ignition of fuel must be heated stably for a long time, which requires high precision and stability of torch docking. At the same time, due to the docking is carried out in the water complex disturbance environment, accurate hovering and control to achieve accurate docking torch burner head.
From the technical principle, the underwater torch is a small gas rocket engine, in the realization of underwater combustion, but also through a series of control mechanisms and procedures to achieve the integration and automatic control of the robot, and even has the ability to burn in a vacuum. In order to ensure that the flame is beautiful in air and underwater, and can work for a long time under cold conditions in winter, the underwater flame also comes with key technologies such as "dual-mode combustion mechanism of atmospheric flame and underwater flame" and "fuel thermal management technology". To the great relief of all the researchers, the robotic underwater torch relay was successfully completed, demonstrating to the world the unique charm of the Science and Technology Olympics.
