Few notes from a trip to China

In mid-August 2009, Kevin Zhang and I were on a two weeks trip visitng various places in China. Our first stop was Beijing and the Chinese Automation Education Conference where Shanghai Baolai Scientific Development, Inc., our distributor in China demonstrated some of Quanser's devices for teaching control. The conference was held at Beihang University and we had a chance to visit some of the university labs to see what their researchers are working on. We talked with Yi Yang, a PhD student who conducts a cutting-edge research on haptics and virtual reality systems. Turns out, he is a happy user of QuaRC, our real-time control software and Q8 Hardware-In-The_Loop board: "Conventionally we use VC++ and OpenGL to develop the control system and the visual interface. With Q8 and QuaRC, I can now do the same thing faster and the control sequence is much clearer than before, " he told us. "I suppose I might be one of the few people who have tried this new method in the VR society. Other members in my lab showed great interest in my work. "

During the trip we also attended a conference for young control scholars - YAC 2009 - held by Nantong University. We demonstrated Quanser Engineering Trainer (QET), linear inverted pendulum, rotary inverted pendulum, Maglev, 2 DOF Helicopter and Active Suspension - to show a small sample of Quanser's 80+ solutions for teaching and research. The professors were particularly impressed by the craftwork of our new product, the Active Suspension System, simulating a vehicle suspension system.

In between the conferences, we visited Tsinghua University, Northeastern University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University. We were impressed by the research that the professors are working on and glad to learn how Quanser solutions can help make their research easier. Dr. Li Liang at the Northeastern University is just awaiting a delivery of Quanser's shake table to enhance his structural dynamics and mine structure research.

We have also met with people from China offices of our partners, The Mathworks and National Instrument to discuss how to work together in the Chinese academic market. We have a lot of ideas and plans for the future, now we have to work on them!

- Nianqing -