Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates—24 March 2020: Abu Dhabi University (ADU) is proud to announce the success of its students in the Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) 2020 edition of the AI Robot competition. The competition challenges students from UAE universities and higher education institutes to design and build industrial robots to be used at EGA’s aluminum smelters. 

 Two teams of Abu Dhabi University (ADU) students were awarded first and second place. Both teams, from ADU’s College of Engineering, received AED 50,000 to build their project. The first-place winners received AED 70,000 and the second-place winners received AED 20,000. The ADU teams were competing with student from the American University of Sharjah and Heriot-Watt University Dubai. 

Abu Dhabi University’s winning team was made up of Abdalla Rashed, Maha Yaghi, Razib Sarker and Tasnim Basmaji, supervised by Dr. Mohammed Ghazal, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Their project was a semi-autonomous robot concept - ‘Iron Mantis’- that is able to expertly navigate through tough environments and will be used at Emirates Global Aluminium’s smelters to detect thermal abnormalities and capture thermal images of pot shells at its reduction area. The second team, made up of - Abdulrahman Abbas, Ammar F. Ghazal, Abdullah Samer Alsit, Mohammad Yousef, Anas Omar Mustafa and Mohamed Ahmed Sayed, supervised by Dr. Mohammad A. AlKhedher, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, created a ‘Dro-Bot’, an advanced integrated Drone-Robot System used for thermal inspection of pot-shell surfaces. 

Dr. Hamdi Sheibani, Dean of the College of Engineering at Abu Dhabi University said, “In ADU’s College of Engineering, we equip our students with advanced skills and expertise to give them a competitive edge, all while providing a vibrant learning culture complete with leadership opportunities for them. I am extremely proud of our talented students and their accomplishments in this competition., It not only reflects their ingenuity and creative prowess, but also their ability to mold advanced technologies into solutions that are able to address real industrial problems.”

He added, “ADU will always remain committed to providing high-quality education, applied research, purpose-built academic facilities. and state-of-the-art laboratories, preparing our students to be leading independent thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators in engineering. We would like to thank the Emirates Global Aluminium for this opportunity, and we look forward to participating in future competitions.”