Second Edition of MBZIRC to Help Advance Innovation in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Khalifa University Launches ‘Program in Artificial Intelligence’ from Fall 2019 Semester

Khalifa University today announced a major foray into building talent and human capital in artificial intelligence by unveiling three initiatives – the Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute (AI Institute), a Program in Artificial Intelligence, and the Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) that will be held in February 2020 to further advance innovation in robotics and artificial intelligence.

Khalifa University has committed a funding outlay of more than AED160 million over a five-year period for projects under the scope of the AI Institute. This is in addition to the AED160 million already committed to the Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC), thus making the university’s total spend on artificial intelligence research projects to more than AED320 million.

The AI Institute is Khalifa University’s third, and complements the other two – Masdar Institute and Petroleum Institute. The third institute’s focus areas will include academic programs in artificial intelligence development, continuous professional development and research centers.

The announcements were made during a press conference that was addressed by Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Dr. Ahmed Al Shoaibi, Senior Vice-President, Academic and Student Services, Dr Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice-President for Research and Development, Dr. Ernesto Damiani, Senior Director, AI Institute, and Dr. Lakmal Seneviratne, Associate Provost of Research & Graduate Studies and Professor of Robotics, as well as other faculty members.

The AI Institute will aim to bring all the university’s research in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), data science and information and communication technologies under a single umbrella.

With US$5-million prize money, the highest in the world, the MBZIRC 2020, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious AI and robotics competitions, is scheduled for February 2020. The international biennial challenge will select 34 robotics teams from top universities around the world to compete in Abu Dhabi for a three-day event that will test the innovation and science and engineering skills.

The Program in Artificial Intelligence, first-of-its-kind in the UAE, will be available to all undergraduate, graduate and PhD science and engineering students starting from Fall 2019 semester. Designed for non-Computer Science and non-Computer Engineering majors, the course will provide students with the required knowledge in AI and related skills to serve the UAE government agencies and the industry sector.

Students pursuing the Program in AI will take five courses – all involving practical work in the lab, helping them link theory to practice. The program culminates with a final AI project which is directly related to students’ major studies.

Mandated to focus on research for next generation digital technologies, the AI Institute will focus on AI, data science, robotics, next generation networks, semiconductor technologies and cybersecurity. The primary focus will be on applied AI, while fundamental and general AI will be additionally pursued through partnerships.

Of the core research centers under AI Institute, Khalifa University Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS) focuses on research for robotics in extreme environments, industrial applications, and infrastructure inspection. EBTIC leads research into advancing intelligent systems technologies for next generation networks (NGNs) and NGN-enabled ICT applications and services that enable the digital economy in the UAE.

The Khalifa University Center for Cyber-Physical Systems (C2PS) focuses on cybersecurity, big data analytics and artificial intelligence, networks and communication technology, and computation architectures. The System-on-Chip Center (SoCC) covers integrated SoC solutions for various applications targeting near market research. The Khalifa University-Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KU-KAIST) Joint Research Center focuses on technologies that are shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), particularly in ‘Smart Transportation’ and ‘Smart Healthcare’.

The AI Institute will be headed by Senior Director Dr. Ernesto Damiani, The institute’s core research centers, already launched in 2018, are the KUCARS and the C2PS. Also under the institute’s umbrella are the KU-KAIST Joint Research Center, the SoCC and the Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center (HEIC). The EBTIC, which includes Etisalat, ICT Fund and British Telecom as partners, will also be central to the institute’s research and development capabilities.

Speaking at the press conference, Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, said: “Khalifa University’s AI Institute, a single umbrella that gathers activities of six research centers, reflects our commitment to research in next generation digital technologies that are priority areas for the UAE’s economy. This is the first institute in the UAE focused on AI applications and will train government and industries in AI science and applications. It will also conduct state-of-the-art research that will benefit government and industry sectors. As new intelligent system capabilities such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, gather steam, Khalifa University will be at the forefront of developing new innovations from these platforms.”

“With US$5-million prize money, the MBZIRC’s second edition to be held in February 2020 will demonstrate our commitment to encourage innovation and nurture talent, while the launch of the Program in Artificial Intelligence will facilitate greater contribution to developing talent in this growing area of science. We believe, with the new research institute, the MBZIRC 2020 and the Program in AI, Khalifa University will continue to lead innovation in next generation technologies that bring benefits to the community,” Dr Al Hammadi added.

MBZIRC 2020 will address key application challenges including security, civic emergency response, and construction automation. Challenge 1 requires a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to autonomously track, locate and capture hostile UAVs to ensure safety.

Challenge 2 requires a team of robots (UAVs and unmanned ground vehicles – UGVs) to collaborate and autonomously locate, pick, transport and assemble different types of objects to build pre-defined structures, in an outdoor environment. Challenge 3 requires a team of UAVs and UGVs to collaborate and autonomously extinguish a series of simulated fires in urban high-rise buildings. The Grand Challenge requires a team of robots (UAVs and UGVs) to compete in a triathlon-type event combining aspects of all three categories.

Clarence Michael
News Writer
15 July 2019

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KU Advances AI Research with Launch of Cybersecurity Research Award with DarkMatter to Accelerate Development of Cyber Solutions for Smart Cities

Security concerns have taken center stage in the internal processes of public and private organizations of all sizes, as well as in the everyday life of individuals. Innovative techniques, protocols, and systems for identifying cyber security threats are all required to address the pressing issue of cyber crisis management.

Cyberattacks are the fastest growing crime in the United States and are increasing in size, sophistication, and cost at the global level. Yet, according to research from the European Commission, the cybersecurity field is suffering from a massive skills shortage.

To encourage local advancements in the field of cybersecurity in this era of smart and digital cities, Khalifa University’s new Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute (AI Institute) will focus its capabilities in machine learning, robotics and AI to find ground-breaking, innovative and exciting solutions to cybersecurity concerns.

Since 2010, the UAE leadership has launched national strategies to guide the country’s development in specific sectors and outcomes that will position the UAE as a knowledge and innovation leader; the AI Institute’s work on cybersecurity will play a large part in this through its Center for Cyber-Physical Systems (C2PS).

The C2PS dedicates itself to establishing an internationally recognized center of excellence in cybersecurity research and is currently addressing key technologies and applications in the security of global ICT infrastructure, data protection and encryption, and the security of cyber-physical systems. Dr. Ernesto Damiani directs both the C2PS and the AI Institute and says AI has become crucial for cybersecurity.

“Traditional security measures are useless against hidden cyberattacks, but some AI models like Recursive Neural Networks can be trained to repel these intruders,” Dr. Damiani explained at the European Agency for Network and Information Security’s high-level meeting in June.

Beyond academia, there are some exciting opportunities for students, graduate research assistants, and researchers generating cybersecurity solutions.

Khalifa University and DarkMatter Group have launched a cybersecurity research award (CRA) for ideas that will safeguard the world’s smart cities against the cybersecurity threats of tomorrow. This is not exclusive to KU students and staff either; applications from both local and international institutions are encouraged to present ideas that could advance the field of cybersecurity. The most innovative solution could be awarded a USD1.5 million grant to pursue their solution.

Applications for the CRA close on 30 August 2019, with selected applicants then invited to present their ideas and submit full proposals by February 2020. The CRA winners will be awarded in May 2020.

KU’s support of the CRA and other initiatives that encourage R&D of smart systems, such as the (MBZIRC), is a testament to the university’s commitment to advancing understanding of AI, and to harnessing it to make a better, cyber-secure world.

Jade Sterling
News and Features Writer
25 August 2019

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 Three Innovative Autonomous Vehicle Research Projects Aimed at Making AVs Safer Were Featured at Dubai World Congress for Self-Driving Transport

Khalifa University faculty and students showcased three cutting-edge projects that are advancing the state-of-the-art in autonomous vehicles and smart transportation during the Dubai World Congress for Self-Driving Transport, which took place from 15-16 October in Dubai.

The congress brought together top experts, policymakers, technology developers, researchers and academia to exchange ideas and proposals about connected autonomous vehicles.

Dr. Majid Khonji, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and his students presented three projects, including a jointly developed KU-Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) self-driving car prototype, to hundreds of Congress visitors.

All three projects directly address the critical need to improve safety assurance of autonomous vehicles.

The first project is being developed by Dr. Khonji and a team of researchers at KU’s Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS) – one of the flagship research centers under the University’s newly launched Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute. The team is programming self-driving cars with robust algorithms designed to help an autonomous vehicle (AV) do route planning under uncertainty. Uncertain conditions and environments, like extreme weather and unknown roads, pose technical challenges to an AV’s perception algorithms – the algorithms that allow a car to understand what it “sees.”

The algorithms being developed at KUCARS aim to help AVs determine uncertainty from the environment through the three key subsystems of perception, prediction, and planning and control, while simultaneously helping to ensure safety.

The second project is being developed in collaboration with MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). It aims to improve vehicle-to-vehicle communication between AVs. Improving an AVs ability to “talk” with other vehicles would significantly improve the safety and reliability of an autonomous vehicle.

The collaborative teams are developing connected AVs capable of planning trajectories while avoiding obstacles and meeting efficiency constraints while keeping collision risk below a given safety threshold that meets government regulations.

The third project on display at the Congress is the KU-KAIST self-driving vehicle prototype, which is being developed under the recently launched KU-KAIST Joint Research Center. The AV is being developed with enhanced vehicle-to-infrastructure communication capability that will allow the AV to receive critical information from a road network. It is also being developed with enhanced cyber-security systems, car-sharing systems, path following, and auto parking using magnetic field localization.

The Dubai World Congress for Self-Driving Transport featured more than 700 technology leaders and innovators and 3,000 visitors. The event aimed to highlight the leading role Dubai is playing in self-driving transport and to accelerate efforts to achieve the targets of Dubai Autonomous Transportation Strategy by attracting experts and technologies of self-driving transport to the UAE.

The event also honored the winners of the Dubai World Challenge for Self-Driving Transport (which carries a prize money of AED19 million). The challenge attracted 65 entities from 20 countries, 15 of whom qualified for the finals. The challenge focused on the first and last-mile challenge of mobility journeys.

Erica Solomon
Senior Editor
16 October 2019

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KU’s New Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute makes AI a Central Focus of its Academic and Research Activities

Self-driving cars, cancer diagnosis systems and workflow optimizations: the uses of artificial intelligence technology are exhaustive, ranging from the artistic to the mundane, from life-saving to recreational.

AI is by no means new; as early as 1950, Alan Turing published a paper titled Computer Machinery and Intelligence exploring the concept of AI and igniting the collective imagination. It’s only now that computers have advanced their technical capabilities to the point where they can handle the complexity of the machine learning algorithms that utilize massive amounts of available data to produce useful insights. A computer’s processing power is now over one trillion times more powerful than in Turing’s day, and they are increasingly being designed specifically for AI applications and therefore accelerating the pace of AI development.

Khalifa University’s Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute (AI Institute) is a multidisciplinary research unit focused primarily on robotics, artificial intelligence, data science, next-generation networks, semiconductor technologies, and cybersecurity. Its mission is to conduct applied and fundamental R&D of the key technologies required to bring the UAE significantly closer to reaching its goal of becoming a global hub for AI innovation.

KU now has three flagship research institutes that serve as interdisciplinary research units focused on long-term strategic priorities. The AI Institute joins the Masdar Institute, focusing on sustainable energy, water and the environment, and the Petroleum Institute, focusing primarily on upstream and downstream hydrocarbon exploration and production.

Through the AI Institute, Khalifa University is positioning artificial intelligence as a central focus of its integrated academic and research activities—with good reason.

According to PwC, AI could contribute as much as USD 96 billion to the UAE’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030 and Accenture has stated that AI could add as much as USD 182 billion to the UAE’s Gross Value Add (GVA) by 2035. A report titled “Artificial Intelligence in the Middle East and Africa: United Arab Emirates – Outlook for 2019 and Beyond,” commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by EY, says the UAE has already seen the second highest regional investment in AI over the past decade: more than US$2.15 billion.

Research projects already undertaken by the research centers now housed under the AI Institute include sentiment analysis across social media, diagnosing cardiovascular disease, and surveillance by collaborating unmanned vehicles, just to name a few. Future projects will build on the institute’s capabilities in robotics, machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision to the fields of energy, water, health, aerospace, supply chains and logistics. The recently launched KU-Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Joint Research Center focuses, for instance, focuses on AI and intelligent systems for smart transportation and smart healthcare. The smart healthcare projects in this center compliment those being conducted by KU’s Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center (HEIC), which is also part of the new institute, and works on topics like minimally invasive biorobotics.

Most importantly, much of the research will cover operational AI, which is the application of AI for real-world applications, particularly at prototype and demonstration scale. This is rather different from fundamental AI, which is focused much more on advancing AI algorithms and platforms. The research projects carried out under the AI Institute are use-inspired, meaning that solutions are sought to identified practical challenges. The results of these projects will not only be ground-breaking, innovative and exciting to the field at large, but also practical and applicable to the population of the UAE and the world.

Artificial intelligence is already tasked with decision-making across many critical infrastructures, with more to come. From energy grids to hospitals to financial services, AI is being applied with the goal of advancing major efficiencies and process improvements. However, integrating new technologies into existing complex systems is a delicate and difficult task and problems with data-inputs, inaccuracies, and faulty results can ultimately lead to poor outcomes and disappointment.

The establishment of the AI Institute comes at a pivotal time for the United Arab Emirates. One in five companies operating in the country consider AI their top digital priority, and 94 percent of companies have AI strategy at the heart of their senior management focus.

Since 2010, the UAE leadership has been launching national strategies and targets to guide the country’s development into a sustainable and competitive knowledge-based economy. Sophisticated strategies, like Abu Dhabi Vision 2030, UAE Vision 2021, and the National Innovation Strategy, are guiding the country in focusing on specific sectors and outcomes that will position the UAE as a knowledge and innovation leader.

The UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Strategy position the UAE to become a global leader in these emerging technology domains. By leveraging its robust expertise in ICT, data analytics and robotics research, and partnering with the region’s leading industry experts in the field, KU’s AI Institute is set to develop the innovative technologies needed to achieve the UAE’s AI transformation goals.

Jade Sterling
News and Features Writer
29 July 2019

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