Khalifa University competed in the Planet X Youth Challenge, a nationwide event aimed to promote students’ interest in STEM. The competition was launched by the Emirates Mars Mission, in partnership with Dubai Airshow 2021, and was designed specifically to inspire the youth to pursue careers in space and aviation.��

A prequalification round was held in September where more than 200 teams from various universities in the country applied to be part of the challenge. This was followed by a two-day training in October. And finally, the main challenge that took place during the Dubai Airshow 2021.����

AeroX, KU’s representative team to the competition, was among the top 6 groups that qualified to compete in the final stage of the challenge after scoring a high score in the Python Hackathon. The team was composed of undergraduate students:

• Soghah Mohamed Ali Jedeid Alshehhi (Electrical Engineering);
• Ahmed Husain Hamad Abdulla Alawani (Aerospace Engineering);
• Somayyah Mohamed Rashed Abdulla Althabahi (Aerospace Engineering); and
• Fatema Saleh Hasan Ali Almarzooqi (Aerospace Engineering).��

During the finals, the teams worked on two main challenges:

• UAV Challenge – The teams were tasked to design, print, and present an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that will be able to conduct exploration missions and collect samples on a fictional planet, Planet X. In creating the model UAV, the teams had to consider the physics behind the design, as well as the environment of the planet.��
• UGV Challenge – This challenge required teams to program an unmanned ground vehicle robot to accomplish several tasks while successfully overcoming obstacles within the 5-minute time limit.��

The AeroX team designed an UAV specific to the environment of Planet X, taking into consideration its gravity, surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, etc. The team observed the differences between Earth’s environment and Planet X, and from their observations they were able to develop their UAV “HEXAPLORE”. Hexaplore is a unique UAV that has five main parts: hexagonal body (base), hexa rotor, higher antenna, drills, and a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG). It is designed to automatically perform the missions required to explore Planet X, including discovering new areas, taking pictures, and collecting samples.

“From this experience, we are able to sharpen our way of thinking and we have gained a lot of knowledge about space missions, especially the Emirates missions. Furthermore, the challenges introduced us to a new programming language and designing software that helped us complete the challenges,” Fatema and Soghah said.��

“We are very honored that we got the chance to meet people from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) who are currently working on different space missions and Eng. Omran Sharaf, the project manager of the UAE’s first mission to Mars. Winning the prize wasn’t our only consideration in participating but meeting these passionate people who push us, the youth, to take part in these amazing opportunities and motivate us to work hard to have a bright future working on STEM jobs,” they added.

Ara Maj Cruz
Creative Writer
26 December 2021

The post Khalifa University Participates in Emirates Mars Mission’s Planet X Youth Challenge appeared first on Khalifa University.

Teaching robots to follow a moving object is more difficult than you think, requiring complex algorithms and a different way of thinking.

Take a look around. What do you see? Most of us have two eyes and we use those eyes to collect light that reflects off the objects around us. The eyes convert that light into electrical signals that are processed by our brain. This builds a representation of the world and we use that to navigate during our everyday lives. Even robots that are the most like humans in appearance, however, don’t see the world the way we do.

Instead, algorithms recognize features in images collected by a robot’s sensors and cameras. The software may create a very basic map of the environment and learn to recognize patterns to help the robot understand its surroundings. This means that robots are being programmed by humans to see things the human thinks the robot will need to see. While this has many very successful examples, no robot is capable of navigating the world using just vision for static recognition.

If you spot a bird outside, you can watch that bird fly through the sky until it lands or disappears from view. This is visual object tracking, and it’s a simple task for humans: spot the object and follow it. For robots, it’s much more difficult.

To improve visual object tracking in robotic applications, Dr. Sajid Javed, Assistant Professor, Dr. Jorge Dias, Professor, Dr. Lakmal Seneviratne, Professor, and Dr. Naoufel Werghi, Professor, all from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Khalifa University, collaborated with Dr. Arif Mahmood from Information Technology University, Pakistan, to develop an AI algorithm that is both highly accurate and quick when detecting and tracking a generic object. Their proposed solution was published in.

“Visual object tracking is a fundamental and challenging task in many high-level vision and robotics applications,” Dr. Javed explains. “Typically, the difficulties lie in developing detection algorithms that can handle blurred images from fast motion, ignore background clutter and deal with significant scale and light variations.”

Object tracking is an application of deep learning where a program takes an initial set of object detections and follows them as they move around frames in a video. The algorithms allow the robot to automatically identify an object in a video and interpret it as a set of trajectories to predict where it will end up.

The first step in tracking an object is to detect it. The research team’s solution narrows a search area down and instructs the robot to find all object instances of one or more pre-determined object classes. The algorithm is trained on a series of examples of these object classes to learn what it is looking for, regardless of the object’s scale, location or pose and despite any partial occlusions or poor lighting conditions.

Once the object has been identified, it needs to be followed. Robots can do this by continuously re-identifying the object in subsequent images, but for visual object tracking to be useful in robotic applications, interpreting the object as a set of trajectories with high accuracy is required.

Algorithms for tracking objects need to accurately perform detections and localize objects of interest in the least amount of time possible. This is especially imperative for real-time object tracking models.

“Discriminative correlation filters (DCF) are well suited to object tracking because of their impressive performance in terms of speed and accuracy,” Dr. Javed says. “In most DCF methods, an online correlation filter is trained from the region of interest in the current frame and then employed to track the target object in subsequent frames.”

High detection accuracy and fast processing speed are difficult to combine: More accurate tracking tasks often require longer processing times, while quicker responses are more prone to errors. In the research team’s solution, accuracy and speed are achieved by constructing a spatiotemporal graph that models and predicts where an object is likely to appear based on its previous identified location. Out of a series of possible trajectories, the most probable is selected by the DCF, which filters the background noise and any other distractions.

To evaluate their algorithm, the team tested it on six challenging benchmark datasets and compared it with 33 existing state-of-the-art trackers. Their results were excellent, achieving higher accuracy than existing trackers on many tests and ranking among the top three for the remaining tests.

As mobile robots and autonomous machines are increasingly deployed, object detection systems are becoming more important. Although great progress is being made, we are still far from achieving human-level performance, but solutions like this are a vital step towards that level of performance.��

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
28 November 2021

The post A New Solution for Visual Object Tracking in Robotics appeared first on Khalifa University.

Two teams from Khalifa University took first and second place for their innovative ground vehicle and drone at the 2nd Dubai World Challenge for Self-Driving Transport. The competition was held by Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) under the theme ‘Self-Driving Logistics’ and offered prizes over AED6 million.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group, honored the winners during a ceremony held at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Wednesday, 27 October 2021, in the presence of His Excellency Mattar Mohammed Al Tayer, Director-General, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the Roads and Transport Authority.

The challenge is devoted to Self-driving Logistical Services, including ground transport and drones. Over six weeks, the qualified projects and initiatives were subjected to various tests at a testing site in the Dubai Silicon Oasis.��

Thirty-one academic institutions and international companies competed in the challenge, with seven teams making it to the finals in the Academia category.��

Khalifa University won first place in the Academia category in the Ground Vehicles Challenge, winning US$100,000 for their robot with a unique mechanical design that makes it effective in rugged conditions and terrain. The robot features a driving program focused on risk management strategies, touchless package delivery, and the successful clearing of tests and obstacles.

The KU Ground Vehicle team was led by Dr. Majid Khonji, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Science, and included the following team members:

• Eyad Shaklab, Research Assistant
• Arjun Sharma, Research Associate
• Rashid Alyassi, Research Engineer
• Dr. Areg Karapetyan, Postdoctoral Fellow
• Mustofa Basri, MSc student
• Mohamed Nagy, MSc student
• Murad Mebrahtu, MSc student
• Mohamed Al Zarooni, 2020 Al Nokhba member

While in the Aerial Vehicles Challenge, Khalifa University finished second and won US$50,000 for a modified drone fitted with a dedicated cargo compartment. The highly reliable drone proved it can quickly deliver supplies in urban areas.

The KU Aerial Vehicle team was led by Dr. Hamad Karki, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and included the following team members:

• Vishnu Badhran, Research Associate
• Vidya Sudevan, PhD student��
• Hamdan Al Dhanhani, 2021 Al Nokhba member
• Khaled Al Kaabi, 2021 Al Nokhba member
• Abdullah Al Sherif, 2020 Al Nokhba member
• Abdullah Al Ataishi, 2020 Al Nokhba member
• Abdullah Al Hosani, 2020 Al Nokhba member

��

Dr. Fahad Al Maskari, Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering and coordinator of the Al Nokhba Program – a KU program that trains National Service Associates from the UAE in the research and development of autonomous vehicle technologies – supported both winning teams in an advisory role.

Teams were evaluated based on three key elements: Safety, which included reliability, visibility handling, interaction with pedestrians, and speed control; usability, which included speed, ease of use, cargo safety and understandable behavior; and the level of maturity, which included passing the scenario and operator interaction, path planning, detection and prediction.��

The challenge was part of the Dubai World Congress for Self-Driving Transport, which aims 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.

Erica Solomon
Senior Publication Specialist
9 November 2021

The post Two KU Teams win 1st and 2nd at Dubai World Challenge for Self-Driving Transport appeared first on Khalifa University.

Khalifa University of Science and Technology has announced it has won the right to host the Middle East’s first-ever IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), one of the world’s largest and most impactful robotics research conferences, in Abu Dhabi in 2024.

The Khalifa University bid, submitted in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority and the UAE Ministry of Education, won against global competition from other leading international universities. Abu Dhabi’s status as a major conference destination, the emirate’s focus on supporting new technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence systems, Khalifa University’s Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute, and the Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KU-CARS), played a significant role in clinching the deal in favor of the university.

Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “Following the successful hosting of the MBZIRC 2020 that brought international acclaim to Abu Dhabi, we feel privileged to have won the international bidding now in collaboration with other UAE Government institutions to bring IROS, one of the world’s largest and most impactful robotics research conferences, not only to Abu Dhabi but to the Middle East, for the first time. The IROS 2024 conference will help portray the UAE’s readiness to accept modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and Khalifa University’s involvement in furthering scientific innovation in this area. We believe the conference will substantially intensify adoption of robotic systems, machine learning and smart devices, while highlighting the advances made in this sector.”

Khalifa University continues to play an undeniably critical role in the advancement of robotics and machine intelligence technologies. In addition to launching the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute, the university also plans to offer new academic programs in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

Moreover, the university’s flagship KU-CARS has over 50 faculty and staff working on several diverse projects, while researchers are conducting groundbreaking research to discover new ways to advance robotics for extreme environments, industrial applications, and infrastructure inspection. KU-CARS also has state-of-the-art labs including a new Marine Robotics Pool and an Autonomous Car Lab. In addition to KU-CARS, other Khalifa University research centers that deploy intelligent systems include the Aerospace and Research Innovation Center (ARIC), and EBTIC.

Khalifa University’s initiatives in intelligence systems and robotics are in line with the UAE’s drive towards advancing the tide of progress in AI, deep learning and automation. The UAE is already exploring how public sector entities can leverage AI solutions in areas including cyber security, to detect and monitor malicious activity; behavioral analysis to aid police by predicting crimes; monitoring economic growth through time lapse satellite imagery; predicting climate change; and improving doctors’ abilities to provide accurate diagnoses.

Clarence Michael
English Editor Specialist
3 November 2021

The post Khalifa University Wins International Bid to Bring Prestigious IEEE Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Conference to Abu Dhabi in 2024 appeared first on Khalifa University.

A robot designed to inspect storage tanks for the oil and gas industry was a hit at the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) Exhibition and was recognized as the winner of the Best Innovative University Project of the Emirates Award 2020.��

Team PetroPremium, composed of Petroleum Engineering students Alanood Alburaiki, Anoud Alshukaili, and Mariam Alkatheeri, developed a robot with sensors and a webcam to scan oil storage tanks. The robot scans the tanks using spiral movements, analyzes the data, and then identifies corrosion spots in the tanks, helping ensure the safety and structural integrity of the tanks.��

“The idea came while we were discussing with Dr. Waleed Alameri (Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering) about MBZIRC 2020. He believed in us and his support, along with Dr. Hamad Karki, (Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering) who helped us reach this great achievement, which is winning the Emirates Award under the Best Innovative Student Project,” Anoud commented.��

“As the demand for oil and gas is increasing, resources are diminishing. The oil and gas industry is looking for more advanced technologies to increase productivity in a cost-effective manner. Therefore, our role as petroleum engineers is to innovate and help in developing the oil and gas sector in achieving our country’s vision. Robotics has the potential to positively impact the oil and gas industry. We’re planning to keep working on this project and implementing new technologies that will increase its efficiency,” Alanood said.��

“Through our participation in the MBZIRC, we have seen that the United Arab Emirates, under its wise leadership, has always supported vital projects that will help the country achieve its goals. We also received a great morale boost after we met His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who praised our role as Emirati students in advancing scientific progress and expanding the perceptions of creativity and innovation. He also praised us as an example to follow and encouraged us to continue working on scientific investment,” she said.��

“It is also not surprising that we have received the full support of the Khalifa University administration and the educational staff. The University provides their students with innovative courses, competitions, and most importantly, access to their laboratories where students can work on their projects,” remarked Alanood.��

Dr. Waleed also commented: “Thank you Anoud, Alanood, and Mariam for such an excellent achievement. We are always here to help, serve and support our students at Khalifa University and I’m sure that this is not the end. We will develop the idea of the designed robot and one day will apply it in real projects.”��

“The Petroleum Engineering Department at Khalifa University was the main reason for us to continue with the project. This achievement is also directed to our beloved country and our families as well. We as graduate students are proud to reach this level of achievement during this pandemic. This is proof that nothing is impossible nowadays and we can turn what is impossible to possible by our determination and persistence,” Anoud added.��

Ara Maj Cruz
Creative Writer
6 June 2021

The post Student-designed Robot Wows at MBZIRC Exhibition, Wins Emirates Award 2020 appeared first on Khalifa University.

Khalifa University PhD student Yusra Alkendi shared her research in robotics and autonomous systems during a technical session on Sunday, 4 April, at the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) R&D Center, the research arm of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum (MBR) Solar Park, the world’s largest single site solar park located in Dubai.

During her presentation to the DEWA R&D Center researchers, Yusra presented some of the major research projects being carried out at the KU Center of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (KUCARS).��

She presented the center’s research activities under the theme of “Robotic Systems for Critical Infrastructure Exploration, Inspection and Maintenance,” which includes projects to improve robotic system localization, mapping, and navigation; 3D reconstruction and coverage path planning; and systems identification and control.

She also shared the center’s activities under the theme “Automated Systems for Assembly, Manufacturing, and Transportation,” which include projects to enhance robotics grasping and manipulation and robotics drilling and assembly.

Yusra’s research thesis, titled “Towards More Robust Autonomous Perception and Navigation Systems in Extreme Environments” is of particular interest to the DEWA R&D Center. She is studying how to improve persistent surveillance of critical infrastructure using single to multiple unmanned robotic��systems; how multi-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems can be leveraged for improved maintenance, surveillance, and security tasks in solar power plants; and how to optimize aerial-ground robotics system capable of operating autonomously to perform maintenance operations with minimal human��intervention.

Yusra is supervised by Dr. Yahya Zweiri, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering, and Dr. Lakmal Seneviratne, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of KUCARS.

About KUCARS, Dr. Seneviratne said: “Robotics is a powerful technology poised to have a disruptive societal impact. KUCARS brings together a critical mass of researchers, with state of the art labs, to address some of the cutting edge R&D challenges in robotics. KUCARS has a strong international reputation and has the vision to be amongst the top robotics labs in the world.”��

The DEWA R&D Center brings together 39 researchers and focuses on four research areas, including producing electricity from solar power and other clean energy technologies; the integration of smart grids; energy efficiency, and water. Since its establishment, the Center has hosted over 24 technical sessions in order to share knowledge and promote creativity and development.

Erica Solomon
Senior Publication Specialist
23 May 2021

The post PhD Student Shares Research at DEWA R&D Center appeared first on Khalifa University.