Harbin Engineering University 哈尔滨工程大学
Chinese state university that built the Wukong full-ocean-depth AUV, which reached 10,896 m in the Mariana Trench in 2021, and the XH1000 under-ice AUV.
Harbin Engineering University (HEU) is a public research university in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, and one of China's main centres for naval architecture, ocean engineering, marine equipment and nuclear engineering. It was founded in 1953 as the PLA Military Engineering Institute, became the Harbin Shipbuilding Engineering Institute in 1970, and took its present name in 1994. The university is administered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Its English website lists 27 colleges and schools, more than 16,700 undergraduates and more than 17,000 graduate students, 1,897 teaching staff, eight CAS/CAE academicians and four campuses. The main campus is at 145 Nantong Street, Nangang District, Harbin.
HEU describes itself as a major base for basic and applied research in naval architecture, ocean engineering and marine equipment. It lists underwater robots, integrated navigation, underwater acoustic positioning, ship stabilisation and marine power among its distinctive technologies. Its research platforms include national-level key laboratories for underwater robot technology and underwater acoustic technology. Provincial and ministerial labs cover deep-sea engineering equipment, underwater operation technology and equipment, ship navigation and control, and ship intelligent systems, and the university also hosts the MIIT Key Laboratory of Underwater Propulsion Technology. The marine-robotics team now works within the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Marine Vehicle Technology.
HEU's best-known vehicle is Wukong, a full-ocean-depth autonomous underwater vehicle developed under a National Key R&D Program project that HEU led. The team began the project in 2018. Instead of titanium, Wukong's four main pressure hulls are borosilicate glass spheres. The team says each hull costs less than one-sixth as much as a conventional one and weighs less than half as much, and it describes this as the first use of glass for the main pressure hulls of a full-ocean-depth AUV. In early 2021 Wukong reached 7,709 m, which was reported as an Asian record for AUVs. During an October-November 2021 campaign from the research vessel Tansuo-1, it made four dives below 10,000 m in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, reaching 10,009 m, 10,888 m, 10,872 m and finally 10,896 m on 6 November 2021. That dive surpassed the 10,028 m record for untethered AUVs set abroad in 2020. On one dive the mother ship moved about 11 km away, and Wukong finished its mission and surfaced on its own. The campaign also tested long-range underwater acoustic data links at distances of more than 15 km from the ship, and tracking with an HEU-developed full-ocean-depth USBL system. HEU has said it is starting work on a new-generation full-ocean-depth Wukong.
HEU also builds AUVs for polar work. Its XH1000, a fish-shaped AUV developed by a team under Associate Professor Zhu Zhongben, surveyed about 7,000 square metres beneath sea ice near the Chukchi Sea during China's 13th Arctic Ocean expedition aboard the icebreaker Xuelong 2 (July-September 2023). The Wukong6000 AUV sailed to the Arctic aboard Sun Yat-sen University's polar research vessel and made what HEU describes as China's first unmanned autonomous navigation and observation under Arctic ice. Science and Technology Daily dates this mission to 2024.
Beyond vehicles, HEU trains much of China's marine-robotics workforce. The Wukong team alone reports more than 50 PhD and more than 100 master's graduates. HEU has hosted the National Marine Vehicle Design and Production Competition and the World University Underwater Robot Competition. In September 2026 it opened an Advanced Technology Research Institute for Emergency Management in the Ship, Ocean and Nuclear Field, with research centres for embodied-intelligence and rescue robotics, and it lists unmanned swarm coordination and ocean environment monitoring among its key areas.
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Contact Harbin Engineering University
WEBSITE
https://www.hrbeu.edu.cn/PHONE
+86 451 8251 9213HEADQUARTERS
China
Company Facts
Founded
1953
Primary Role
Research Institute
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Asia-Pacific
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Funding Stage
Grant / Non-profit
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Keywords
- Harbin Engineering University
- 哈尔滨工程大学
- Wukong full-ocean-depth AUV
- Wukong6000
- XH1000
- under-ice AUV
- borosilicate glass pressure hull
- Mariana Trench
- full-ocean-depth USBL
- underwater acoustics
- naval architecture
- Research Institute
- Unmanned Marine Vehicle
- AUV
- Education & Research
- Defense & Security
- Research Platform
