Snake-like, miniature robots redefine limits of engineering

Redefining limits

The snake robots and miniature robots developed by the team are redefining humanity's exploration limits in confined spaces. They also show unique advantages in scenarios such as nuclear power facilities and aircraft fuel tanks.

"In the medical field, there are minimally invasive surgical robots," Chen said. "We have introduced this concept into the industrial field, developing robots for industrial minimally invasive 'surgery', promoting technology and model innovation in equipment maintenance. In the future, this will be applied in high-end equipment inspections in nuclear power and aerospace," he added.

As the team leader, Chen's educational philosophy mirrors his innovative research approach. He candidly tells every new doctoral student that choosing a scientific path is undoubtedly stepping into the gates of hell, and cannot have a work-life balance.

Behind this strict requirement is his profound understanding of the mission of scientific research.

"A university should undertake more pioneering tasks," Chen said. "Like how Samuel C.C. Ting (the world-renowned physicist) discovered the J particle (a new subatomic particle) — doing things that could be utilized in tens or hundreds of years — universities should lead the way."

"I ensure that each student's project will not be outdated in 10 years," he stated.

This philosophy has yielded fruitful results. The wind power monitoring and diagnostics system developed by the team now covers 60 percent of wind farms nationwide, and their blade-end timed detection technology has been hailed by international peers as a "sensational innovation."

In the field of managing aeroengine health, the monitoring and diagnostics systems developed by the team have been installed on various helicopters.

Innovation hub

The iHarbour Academy of Frontier Equipment at Innovation Harbor itself is a hub of innovation. Chen Xuefeng fondly recalls the construction process: "Without any funding support, university leaders quickly built 1.69 million square meters of buildings and over 5,000 housing units on 5,000 acres of farmland, thanks to the diligent efforts of the Western China Science and Technology Innovation Harbour."

This can-do spirit is vividly exemplified in the new era and deeply ingrained in Chen's work ethic.

Chen said one-third of the nation's aviation and half of its aerospace operations are in Xi'an. He believes that Shaanxi's deep roots in the aviation and aerospace fields offer his team unique advantages.

Based in China's western region, Chen's team has achieved global academic recognition. According to Elsevier's Scopus and SciVal database, over the past five years, the team has published more than 500 papers in mechanical fault diagnosis as the world's academic leader in the field, with total citations exceeding 20,000.

His research has been cited in patents by top companies such as General Electric and Aero-Engine Corporation of China, ranking first worldwide in influence in the field.

Today, Innovation Harbor has established joint research institutes with 230 leading enterprises, forming 88 deep-integration innovation consortiums.

Liu Tingyu contributed to this story.