SEU Research Team Heads to Antarctica Once More

On October 27th, the Southeast University (SEU) expedition team departed from Nanjing for their 40th Antarctic Scientific Expedition. The ceremony was attended by Huang Dawei, Vice President of SEU, along with leaders from the Publicity Department of the CPC SEU Committee, the School of Automation, and the Scientific Research Institute, among others.

The departure ceremony was chaired by Jin Lizuo, Secretary of the CPC Committee for SEU’s School of Automation. Wei Haikun, Dean of the School of Automation, detailed the objectives of the 40th Antarctic Scientific Expedition. Then, Ge Jian and Wang Qihang, both members of the Antarctic expedition team, delivered their remarks. Huang Dawei then presented the team with the expedition flag.

For Ge Jian, this will be his third trip of scientific expedition to Antarctica. He said, “People often ask me why I’m going to Antarctica again. Frankly, I have countless reasons to stay back – my aging parents, young children, and my wife’s busy schedule. However, when I think of Hao Yingli, who sacrificed his life for the Antarctic scientific expedition, and Wei Haikun, Zhang Kanjian, Zhang Hui, Liu Xichui, Fang Shixiong, and many other teachers who have endured many hardships for this cause, I feel it is my responsibility to go to Antarctica again. This is an undeniable mission!”

Wang Qihang’s participation means that SEU has a “Gen Z” research team member. He said, “In the year 2009 when SEU joined in the Antarctic scientific expedition, I was only 10 years old. By 2022, I had become an official member of the team. I will uphold the original aspiration of a CPC member, take the baton of scientific research, to persevere in our original mission, and to diligently fulfill our tasks, for the glory of SEU and our country.”

In earlier projects, SEU has established the “SEU Polar Energy” polar unattended intelligent power supply system at Taishan Station and Kunlun Station in Antarctica respectively. The system has developed a distributed and modular unattended platform targeted at the special environment of low temperature and low pressure in the polar plateau. After more than a decade of technological research, the system has broken through key technologies such as automatic monitoring and control, remote telemetry and tele-control, massive data storage, power supply guarantee, and environmental control in the Antarctic inland area, providing stable and reliable power supply, environmental support and communication links for the equipment at the Antarctic research site.

It has been reported that the polar unattended intelligent power supply system was successfully transported to the Antarctic inland Taishan Station and Kunlun Station along with China’s 36^th and 39^thinland Antarctic scientific expedition teams, and formally put into operation. The equipment provided an uninterrupted power supply for the scientific research equipment at the polar site and ran unattended and stably for a long period of time, successfully accomplishing the established scientific research tasks.This year, the two SEU members are assigned to carry out annual maintenance and upgrading of the intelligent power system, so as to ensure that the equipment continues to provide high-quality energy supply for various types of resource monitoring equipment and research equipment in Antarctica.

About the team members:

• Ge Jian comes from Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, and is currently a faculty member at the School of Automation, SEU. His research areas cover industrial process optimization control, intelligent control system design and integration, as well as pattern recognition and intelligent algorithm research.

• Wang Qihang comes from Wuhan City, Hubei Province, and is a youth researcher at the School of Automation, SEU. His specializes in the energy dispatching of Antarctic unattended energy systems.