To develop an international research team, the discipline of Intelligent System Science and Engineering has been strengthening the international exchange of teachers to acquire foreign research theories and methods and keep pace with the international research frontier. The discipline signed the agreement of ‘International Joint Laboratory of Ship Intelligence and Autonomous Navigation Technology’ with Wuhan University of Technology, Russian University of Transport, and Seoul National University of Korea to build an internationally collaborative platform integrating international talent training, scientific research cooperation and achievement transformation to promote the development and application of intelligent ships and autonomous navigation technology. The team of marine device control technology recruited AMED researchers from the French National Research Institute to cooperate in high-level talent training, underwater robot control, and complex system theory. The team of Xia Guihua and Zhu Qidan continued to promote the ‘Intergovernmental International Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Project-Autonomous Ship Digital Remote Support Control Center’, and carried out in-depth cooperation with Open Simulation Platform (OSP), completed the establishment of ship 3D digital model of the main systems of the ship, realized the interconnection of high-throughput data between the shipping entity and 3D digital model, and the ship 3D visualization twin system model was realized. The discipline has completed the construction and debugging of the autonomous ship digital remote support control center, and has initially realized the real-time monitoring of ship navigation status and remote navigation command issuance in the remote support control center at the shore end. The current status of the international exchange of the institute is shown in Table 5-10.

Table 5-10 International communication of teachers

The above table shows that the faculty of Intelligent System Science and Engineering are increasingly engaged in international communications and their international influence in academic affairs is rising continuously as well.

The Discipline of Intelligent System Science and Engineering attaches great importance to international cooperation and exchanges. It has employed Jonathan, a member of the British Academy of Engineering, as the international honorary dean. It has an international cooperation program with the Technical University of Munich in Germany for the cultivation of national innovative talents and has also developed multi-level joint training and long-term scientific cooperation with many famous universities abroad, such as the University of Cambridge, Imperial College, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Slaughter, the University of Newcastle, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the University of Adelaide, and the University of Calgary. The discipline hosts and organizes various international and national academic conferences every year, and has received more than one hundred overseas experts for exchange.

Harbin Engineering University has taken the lead in establishing the International Consortium for Innovation and Cooperation in Marine and Offshore Engineering (ICNAME). Relying on this alliance, the Discipline of Intelligent System Science and Engineering held the 5th International Conference on Innovation and Cooperation in Marine and Offshore Engineering (ICNAME2021) and the 1st International Forum on Ship Intelligence and Autonomous Navigation Technology on November 16, 2021. Ninety-five famous experts and scholars from famous universities, research institutes, and enterprises from 15 countries, including China, Russia, France, Norway, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, participated in the conference through a combination of online and offline methods. The conference focused on intelligent and autonomous ships and green ship technology to carry out deep-level exchanges. The conference discussed the cutting-edge innovative technologies for accelerating ship intelligence, unmanned, digitalization, and low carbonization, and jointly launched the initiative of establishing the ‘International Joint Laboratory of Ship Intelligence and Autonomous Navigation Technology’ to deepen the global scientific and technological cooperation in the field of ship and marine engineering and jointly promoted the scientific and technological progress in the international ship and marine field.

The Discipline of Intelligent System Science and Engineering has organized forty sessions of the Wisdom and Innovation Forum, inviting more than 60 well-known scholars home and abroad for academic exchanges.

The 2022 International Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control (ICGNC 2022) was held in Harbin between August 5 and August 7, 2022. Four academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, one academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, more than 100 national talents, chief teachers, and more than a thousand experts and scholars from domestic and foreign institutions of higher learning, research institutes, and industrial sectors gathered in Harbin to discuss the academic and technical issues related to the field. During the conference, several forums were also held, including the national teaching master forum, the young scientists' forum, and the chief teachers' forum. The opening ceremony of the conference was hosted by Prof. Zhao Yuxin, assistant to the President of Harbin Engineering University. Since its establishment, the International Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control has developed into the largest academic conference in China in the field of guidance, navigation and control of aviation, aerospace, navigation, land and other motion bodies with great international influence. The conference has formed a multi-level integration pattern of the National Master Teacher Forum, the Enterprise Master Forum, and the Young Scientist Forum, providing a platform for domestic and foreign experts and scholars to exchange research findings in important areas of guidance, navigation and control and to seek possible future cooperation.

On the afternoon of March 11, 2022, the Discipline of Intelligent System Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Russian University of Transport, and Korea's Seoul National University signed a joint agreement on ‘International Joint Laboratory of Ship Intelligence and Autonomous Navigation Technology’ to build an international collaborative platform integrating international talent training, scientific research cooperation and achievement transformation to promote the development and application of intelligent ships and autonomous navigation technology.

In addition to focusing on exchanges with outstanding faculty members home and abroad, the Discipline of Intelligent System Science and Engineering also places great emphasis on cultivating talents. Relying on the national CSC program, the School selects four students each year to study in top international universities, such as Imperial College, California Institute of Technology, Technical University of Munich, Ghent University, etc.

Under the leadership of the HEU and with the full promotion of the Discipline of Intelligence, we are making the development of the first-class cultivation discipline of control science and engineering as its root, implementing the construction goals of the international exchange platform in the 14th Five-Year Plan of the School. The discipline has been working hard to improve its ability in personnel training, faculty construction, and scientific research.

As for the recruitment of international experts, the discipline has invited more than 20 internationally renowned experts as adjunct professors to promote nationalized exchanges in the discipline.

The list of organized international academic conferences is as follows.

Table 5-12  International Academic Conference

The discipline, as the main organizer, hosted the 5th International Conference on Innovation and Cooperation in Marine and Offshore Engineering (ICNAME2021) and the 1st International Forum on Ship Intelligence and Autonomous Navigation Technology on November 15-16, 2021. More than 3,000 famous experts and scholars from 95 famous universities, research institutes, and enterprises from 15 countries, including China, Russia, France, Norway, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, participated in the conference through a combination of online and offline methods. The conference focused on intelligent and autonomous ships, green ship technology and fulfilled thought-provoking exchanges. Participants of the conference discussed the accelerated promotion of intelligent, unmanned, digital, low-carbon, and other cutting-edge innovative technologies of ships, and jointly launched the initiative to establish the ‘International Joint Laboratory of Ship Intelligence and Autonomous Navigation Technology’, to deepen global scientific and technological cooperation in the field of shipping and marine engineering, and promote the international scientific and technological progress in the field of ship and sea.

The discipline hosted the 15th International Conference on Innovative Computing, Information and Control (ICICIC 2021) online on September 15-16, 2021. The conference offered great opportunities for in-depth discussions on 24 topics including intelligent data analysis, intelligent control, and system identification, control theory and applications, and control systems and fault detection. The conference was attended by more than 300 participants.