Khalifa University teams placed 2nd in the Robotics for Good and 3rd in the Drones for Good 2016 Competitions for their innovative “Navigation System for the Visually Impaired-Obstacle Detection (NSVI-OD)” robot and “Multi-Perspective Constant Aerial Surveillance System (M-CASS)” drone following the finals held in Dubai on February 17-18 2017.
The NSVI-OD robot was developed by team comprising both students and faculty: Khaled Humood Ahmed Alagha Ali AlShebli and Shakti Singh. Their robot aims to assist people with visual disabilities by providing them with a mechanism namely a rolling cane mounted with a camera and sensor which alerts them to obstacles in their path including staircases.
The M-CASS drone was created by a faculty team from Khalifa University Dr. Lakmal Seneviratne Dr. Guowei Cai and Dr. Tarek Taha with assistance from a team at the Gwangju Institute for Science and Technology. The drone uses two special sub-systems: a stationary tethered aerial robot system (STAR) and a novel 3-D wireless charging platform (3-D WCP) in order to provide continuous aerial surveillance without stopping to recharge the device.
