CHANGSHA -- Robots have become an indispensable factor in China's modernization drive, and no longer a figment of the imagination appearing only in science-fiction books.

Now, nobody doubts that the level of robot deployment is a measurement of a country's industrial strength.

State-of-the-art robots have a large market potential across the country. From automobile plants and steel workshops to the tertiary industries, robot technology is important in improving productivity.

He Qinghua, chief inventor of China's first tunnel-construction robot at the Central and South China University, in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, recalled that his invention project was started in a run-down workshop with nothing more complicated in the way of tools than hammers, over a decade ago.

The competition in the research area is equally intensive.

Besides the construction robot produced in Hunan, the Harbin Industrial University, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has developed cleaning and reception robots, and the Shenyang Automation Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a mobile installation robot and a point welding robot.

Financing, however, is a problem for the automation industry. Professor He said that he is now involved in transforming the Hunan Shanhe Intelligence Machinery Co. into a share-holding robot research and development company.

"Amassing funds in the capital market will help provide robot research with sufficient funds to boost this fledgling industry, " said He.

Zhang Bo, an academician with the academy, said that China's robots can be expected to reach the world's top level soon.