China leads the world in adding wind turbine capacity, is home to the busiest container ports and excels at deep-sea science.
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For Malaysian robotics scientist, Professor Mohd Rizal Arshad, who relocated to China this year, the growing number of underwater structures and deep-sea explorations hold great potential for marine robot applications.
“The future is in the ocean,” the ocean robotics expert said. He envisions the sea as a future source of drinking water, food, minerals and power such as wave energy.
Rizal said China had a robust ecosystem that enabled the swift translation of research into industry applications, fostered direct engagement with businesses to tackle real-world challenges and gave easy access to components for building prototypes.
The marine engineer joined Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Entrepreneur College in Taicang in the eastern province of Jiangsu, as the dean of the school of robotics in February.
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After completing his education in Britain, he researched control and robotic systems for 26 years in Malaysia, developing underwater submersibles, cable and non-cable underwater vehicles, floating robots and crawler robots for the seabed, among other intelligent marine robots.