The world's first unmanned boat light show -- a love story integrating lights, images, installations, and music -- was choreographed by Yunzhou-Tech in Yancheng City during evenings leading up to the May Day holiday.

Nanhai Park onlookers in East China's Jiangsu Province were treated to the 30-minute waterfront spectacular themed after the Chinese flowering crabapple (malus spectabilis). The unmanned surface vehicles told of a young woman whose sweetheart leaves their small hometown to study in Europe. The return liner is hit by an Atlantic storm, causing her to lose track of him during an emotion-wrought wait.

Love story USV formations [Photo courtesy WeChat account: yunzhou-tech]

The plot is brought to life as 66 USVs equipped with LED ice screens, beam and laser lights change formation on a lake at precise intervals, speeds, and positions. In addition to flow resistance, the USVs faced wind force changes that could have upset LED screens of up to 2 m (7ft) tall, according to a company executive.

The USV team reports overcoming the problem due to years of experience in rapid gathering, formation maintenance and change, dynamic task assignment, synergic obstacle avoidance, and fault-tolerance control.

Located in Southern Software Park of the Zhuhai High-Tech Industrial Development Zone (Tangjiawan), Yunzhou-Tech is a leading developer of USVs used for environmental measurements, marine surveys, rescue, and unmanned shipping. In addition, states its website: "Yunzhou-Tech creatively combines unmanned boat performance with local culture to create an innovative show for different cities, which is a great tool to create a new cultural IP and landmark."

In 2018, Yunzhou had 81 self-developed USVs perform against the background of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge at the Zhuhai parallel session of the Spring Festival Gala.