On May 18, the 31st "Dongli Lake Forum" – Tianjin Neural Engineering Summit Forum and the Launching of the National Key R&D Program "Intelligent Robotics" Meeting were held in the Dongli District, Tianjin with nearly 200 experts and scholars from close to 50 institutions participating.

On behalf of the Dongli District Committee and Government, Yang Hao, Deputy Chief Executive of the People’s Government of the Dongli District welcomed the representatives from universities, research institutions, enterprises and public institutions. He said that the People's Government of the Dongli District and Tianjin University had developed a close cooperative relationship in recent years. For example, China’s first "Cloud Brain Center of National Health and Medical Big Data Pilot Project” was jointly established in the Dongli District by the two parties and CEC Data. This has promoted the realization of “two transformations” in the Dongli District and the sound and rapid development of the regional economy and society.

Yuan Yingjin, Vice President of Tianjin University said the development of modern medicine can’t be separated from engineering science, but that new problems and new demands in medicine have greatly facilitated the development of engineering science itself. He hoped to provide a high-level and quality academic forum for the research of neural engineering in China through this Neural Engineering Summit Forum so as to make contributions to the further promotion of the development of scientific and technological productivity, to the improvement in research cooperation mechanisms of well-known domestic research institutions and to the frontier issues of world science and the technology community.

In the future, artificial intelligence will see new intelligent forms, focusing on brain-inspired technology, brain science technology, and brain-computer intelligence fusion technology, which completely simulates and integrates biological intelligence from the microscopic to the macroscopic and from structure to function. Neuro-engineering technology has become the key means for giving birth to a new generation of hybrid intelligence by building an information bridge between human’s brain intelligence and machine intelligence. This forum conducted in-depth discussions around the new inter-related fields of neural engineering and artificial intelligence, and revealed new theories, technologies, and methods from experts and scholars in recent years.

At the meeting, Gu Xiaosong, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Director of the Division of Medicine, Tianjin University, reported on "Innovation and Transformation of Regenerative Medicine in Tissue Engineering". Yu Chunshui, Vice-president of Tianjin Medical University, Guo Yi, Dean of the School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhang Tao, Distinguished Professor of Nankai University, Yin Tao, Researcher from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Professor Dang Jianwu of the School of Computer Science and Technology, Tianjin University were specially invited to give speeches involving imaging genomics, neurophysiology, non-invasive and precise neural control technology, control technology, among many other subjects.

Over the past four years since it was last held, the Tianjin Neural Engineering Summit Forum has been trying to build an exchange platform of normalization and stabilization for industry professionals, scholars, and research institutions in the field of neural engineering, so as to enhance the overall research level of neural engineering, strive to create a more collaborative network of research and promote interactive development among the academic community, government, and industry.

In order to further push forward the development in neural engineering technology and other related fields and advance the organization and implementation of key and special projects, the launching meeting of "Bio-Machine Intelligent Interaction and Bio-Machine-Electricity Robot Technology", the special program of the national key research and development program "Intelligent Robotics", was held under the chairmanship of Professor Ming Dong of Tianjin University on that afternoon.

The direct information interaction between living matter and machines (bio-machine interaction) is currently a break-through frontier information technology that affects basic human lifestyle and promotes social change and has important scientific significance and application value. However, at present, the development of bio-machine interaction still has the problems of weak man-machine-loop interaction, low signal resolution, poor model robustness, and weak scene adaptability. In this case, it is difficult to meet the demands of social sci-tech innovation and human pursuit for a higher quality of life. The program is dedicated to solving key problems such as neurological perception, repair, replacement, and enhancement, faced in the process of bio-machine intelligent interaction so that the application of intelligent robot technology in medical and special fields can be promoted to more fully give impetus to the development of advanced technologies in the medical industry so as to strengthen China’s military defense forces. Under those overall objectives, researchers have developed bio-machine intelligent interactive robots, with technology for rehabilitation, man-machine co-bots whose upper limbs have sports a neural prosthesis and where a downward leap is enhanced, and tight-coupling spaceflight test beds operated remotely to realize the application of co-bots in clinical and special military fields.

The planned implementation period of the program is 3 years, and the program funding is 24.59 million yuan. The program brought together 17 outstanding domestic units and supporting platforms in related fields including 6 national key laboratories, 9 provincial and ministerial key laboratories, and 5 industrial research centers. On this basis, a high-level research team with close cooperation in science, engineering and the integration of industry, universities, and research have been formed to conduct joint research on a series of key technologies and major applications of the bio-machine-intelligent interaction and bio-machine-electricity robots. In addition to the traditional clinical rehabilitation field, the program mainly incorporated the top domestic aerospace research teams, forming unique advantages in space man-machine intelligence interaction, man-machine dynamic coupling, and exoskeletal bio-machine-electricity integration and other associated fields.

Wang Hailong, Party Secretary of School of Precision Instruments and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, spoke as the representative of the project’s supporting agency. He said that the School would ensure the security and service of the program and sincerely hoped for high-level results as soon as possible to give feedback to the country as the program was the first national key R&D program on “Intelligent Robotics” for Tianjin University. Wei Xin, Deputy Director of the Office of Finance Affairs of Tianjin University, explained the related policies concerning scientific research projects and fund management, and many requirements for resource allocation, scientific research projects, and fund management. Subsequently, the program leader Professor Ming Dong illustrated the overall situation of the project, and the responsible persons of each program reported on the implementation plans for each topic. After full discussion in the previous period, an advisory group of experts led by Gu Xiaosong, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was established and a letter of appointment was issued to all experts.

After the meeting, Yang Hao and other guests visited the “Cloud Brain Center of National Health and Medical Big Data Pilot Project” Exhibition Hall in the Jinghu Science Park at Dongli Lake in Dongli District. It is China's first intelligent health-care platform based on artificial intelligence technologies including big data, cloud services and deep learning, which was jointly established by Tianjin University, CEC Data and the People's Government of the Dongli District.

According to reports, the “National Key R&D Program” is one of the highest-level major scientific and technological programs in China, which consists of the original 973 Program, the 863 Program, the National Key Technology Support Program, the Special Program of International Science and Technology Cooperation and Exchange, the Industrial Technology Research and Development Fund, and the Special Scientific Research Fund of Public Welfare Professions of China. The program conducts research on strategic, basic, forward-looking major scientific issues, key technologies and products that are related to the core competitiveness of industry, the overall capacity for independent innovation, and national security.