News

A new fabrication technique for wearable humidity sensors developed from graphene oxide and paper cellulose fiber provides enhanced efficiency and a reduced environmental impact.    A team of researchers from Khalifa University's System on Chip Lab (SoCL) has developed a novel humidity sensor from environmentally friendly paper cellulose fiber and graphene oxide matrix. Their sensor, which is also biocompatible, is designed for use in various wearable electronic devices and has already been employed in several applications, including non-contact proximity sensing, environmental humidity detection, and human respiration detection. The applications showcase the sensors broad potential.    Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Muhammad Umair…

Electrical components made from paper and graphene oxide could mark the next breakthrough in flexible wearable electronics for a wide range of applications    Researchers from Khalifa University’s System-on-Chip Laboratory (SoCL) have developed a flexible memristor device using cellulose and graphene oxide that has the potential to revolutionize wearable electronics. It is low-cost, flexible, biocompatible and conveniently disposable. They published their original work in MRS Bulletin and a further study testing their material for ultraviolet and sunlight monitoring in Nanoscale Research Letters.   The team included Dr. Anas Alazzam, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Nahla Alamoodi, Assistant Professor of…

Dr. Mohamed Hassan is an Assistant Professor at McMaster University, Canada, where he leads the Fanos research lab focusing on intelligent Cyber-Physical Systems-on-Chip. He also worked as a System-on-Chip (SoC) R&D lead engineer at Intel and as a SoC Performance Architect at Qualcomm. He obtained his PhD from University of Waterloo in 2017. Dr. Hassan won multiple awards including the Discovery Launch Supplement Award from NSERC, the PhD Thesis Award and the Faculty of Engineering (FOE) Award from University of Waterloo, the ACM SIGBED Best Paper Award in ACM/IEEE Embedded Systems Week, the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Real-Time…

With more devices connected to the internet, there’s a need for new computing platforms to speed up data processing closer to these ‘edge’ devices. Khalifa University researchers are looking to analog computing to to support data processing at the source where the data is being generated   Devices at the ‘edge’ of the network – which includes Internet of Things (IoT) devices placed in homes and offices and are physically distanced from computer processing centers – produce a massive amount of data that needs to be transferred to and computed at data centers. These edge devices are pushing network bandwidth…

MIT Technology Review and Majarra have jointly revealed the list of the 2021 Innovators under 35 MENA winners. Khalifa University's Dr. Ali AlHammadi, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Dr. Yasmin Halawani, Postdoctoral Fellow, System-on-Chip Lab (SoCL), were among the 15 innovators recognized.   The Innovators under 35 list highlights the contributions of the most brilliant researchers, experts, and scientists who are breaking new ground in creating solutions for challenges in their communities.   Dr. Ali AlHammadi is recognized for his geospatial insights for smart cities. He developed deep learning models with remote sensing-capable satellites for object detection and…

Speaker: Dr. Mohammed Alser, a Senior Researcher and Lecturer of Bioinformatics and Computer Architecture at ETH Zurich. Brief: Our understanding of human genomes today is affected by the ability of modern computing technology to quickly and accurately determine an individual’s entire genome. Analyzing our genomes is the foundation of many scientific and medical discoveries, and serves as a key enabler of personalized medicine. Our starting axiom for a modern genome analysis is that it should interpret our genomes accurately, quickly, and affordably enough. This talk describes our ongoing journey in enabling efficient genome analysis. We first provide a brief background on…

  The ‘memimpedance’ device can control current flow in a circuit, and could make electronics like wearable sensors, flexible medical devices and biodegradable electronics more efficient   A team from Khalifa University has developed a novel electronic ‘memimpedance’ device that can act as a switch and induce tunable resistor and capacitor behavior simultaneously in an electronic circuit.   A resistor is an electrical component that regulates the flow of electrons in a circuit, while a capacitor is an electrical component that collects and stores electrical charge.   Being able to control flow of electrons, or current, in a circuit is…

  Research partners seek to deliver reliability, security to flight computer system applications    Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have multiple potential uses. To optimize their operability and efficiency, they need to be protected from hackers and must also expend minimal energy to extend their flight time. A variety of internal components tell the drone where to go, how to orient itself and how to avoid danger. However, some of these factors may be exploited to wrest control of the drone from its rightful operator.   In collaboration with the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research…

The original computers were designed around a human brain model. Since then, developments in artificial intelligence and computer science continue to take inspiration from the brain.   Read Arabic story here.   The human brain has always been under study for inspiration of computing systems. Although there’s a very long way to go until we can achieve a computing system that matches the efficiency of the human brain for cognitive tasks, several brain-inspired computing paradigms are being researched. Convolutional neural networks are a widely used machine learning approach for AI-related applications due to their significant performance relative to rules-based or…

The growth of wireless communication technologies that are integral to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, has necessitated the development of cost- and power-efficient devices that can tune and filter the radiofrequency (RF) spectrum used in advanced wireless systems. A collaborative research project has, for the first time, demonstrated the feasibility of a next-generation RF tuning device to allow cost-effective and power-efficient adaptable communication systems. The project is led by Dr. Heba Abunahla, Research Scientist at Khalifa University (KU), and is part of KU’s System-on-a-Chip Lab, which is dedicated to the design and realization of advanced electronic circuits and…

Researchers from Khalifa University’s Systems-on-Chip Lab have had three papers accepted into the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS). ISCAS is the flagship conference of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and the world’s premier networking forum for researchers in the fields of theory, design, and implementation of circuits and systems.   The 2020 conference was held as a virtual event, with all papers available in Open Preview and video presentations hosted to inform participants of the papers’ contents. The conference is designed to emphasize the potential of circuits and systems to find multidisciplinary solutions for the societal…

Vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate could soon be monitored wirelessly via radar following pioneering work by UAE researchers. A team at Khalifa University believe the technology could be used in hospitals and from homes, reducing the need for doctors' house visits and avoiding the need for patients to be physically hooked up to machines. Scientists hope that in time the radars could also be deployed in public settings such as airports to monitor the health of passengers and prevent the spread of future pandemics. Read full story here: https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/health/pioneering-uae-research-monitors-vital-signs-by-radar-1.1002005

A team of researchers from Khalifa University has investigated a memristor-based image compression architecture to speed up image compression while also making the devices using this technology much smaller and more energy efficient. The team comprised Dr. Yasmin Halawani, Post-doctoral Researcher, Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor,  Dr. Mahmoud Al-Qutayri, Professor, all from the System-on-Chip Lab and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Khalifa University, and Dr. Said Al-Sarawi from the Center for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Dr. Halawani explained in her doctoral thesis that today’s devices are “jam-packed with a variety of sensors, which are…

Computer scientists have long been inspired by the human brain, aiming to design a computer that is able to store, retrieve and process information just as efficiently as the brain. The memristor, short for memory resistor, could be the key to designing such a computer as it processes information in a way that mimics the brain’s synapses and enables efficient neural network architecture.  A team from Khalifa University has now developed a new type of flexible memristor device, called ‘NeuroMem’, that will extend the application of memristors to flexible electronic technologies like wearable smart devices. The team, including Dr. Baker…

Researchers at Khalifa University’s System-on-Chip Lab have filed a patent for a novel low-cost glucose sensor that can measure glucose at neutral pH conditions, resulting in a lower-cost and more compact device. A research group led by Dr. Heba Abunahla, Postdoctoral Fellow of Electrical Computer Engineering at KU’s System-on-Chip Lab (SoCL), has developed a novel low-cost non-enzymatic glucose sensor for adults. While glucose sensors are not revolutionary in themselves, the distinguishing property of this sensor is its ability to measure glucose at neutral pH conditions. The sensor is the result of a cooperative effort with faculty from the departments of…

A team of researchers from Khalifa University has developed a portable Covid-19 testing kit, no larger than your average smartphone. The new kit is both portable and can deliver the results in 45 minutes only. Dr. Anas Alazzam, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and member of the System on Chip Center (SOCC) is the primary investigator for the project with Dr. Habiba AlSafar, Director of the Khalifa University Center for Biotechnology and Associate Professor of Genetics and Molecular Biology, as co-principal investigator. The research team includes the Postdoctoral Researchers Dr. Waqas Waheed and Dr. Sueda Saylan, along with Research Associate Hussein Kannout. Read full…

A team of researchers from Khalifa University has designed and developed a memristor-based image compression architecture to speed up image transfer while also making the devices using this technology smaller and more energy efficient.   Read Arabic story here: http://www.researchku.com/news-8-extended.php?id=8 In the time of unlimited data phone plans, it’s easy to forget that we were once constrained by how much data we could consume or produce. According to Domo’s Data Never Sleeps 8.0 report, it is estimated that every minute around 350k stories and 150k photos are posted on Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, Zoom hosts around 208,333 meeting participants in…

  A team of researchers from Khalifa University has developed a portable Covid-19 testing kit, no larger than your average smartphone. The new kit is both portable and can deliver the results in 45 minutes only. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CF113qSpLb4/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet Dr. Anas Alazzam, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and member of the System-on-Chip Lab (SoCL) is the primary investigator for the project with Dr. Habiba AlSafar, Director of the Khalifa University Center for Biotechnology and Associate Professor of Genetics and Molecular Biology, as co-principal investigator. The research team includes the Postdoctoral Researchers Dr. Waqas Waheed, and Dr. Sueda Saylan, along with Research Associate…

A team from Khalifa University has developed a new type of flexible memristor device, called ‘NeuroMem’, that will extend the application of memristors to flexible electronic technologies like wearable smart devices.   Read Arabic story here.   Computer scientists have long been inspired by the human brain, aiming to design a computer that is able to store, retrieve and process information just as efficiently as the brain. The memristor, short for memory resistor, could be the key to designing such a computer as it processes information in a way that mimics the brain’s synapses and enables efficient neural network architecture. …

Vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate could soon be monitored wirelessly via radar following pioneering work by UAE researchers. A team at Khalifa University believe the technology could be used in hospitals and from homes, reducing the need for doctors' house visits and avoiding the need for patients to be physically hooked up to machines. Read full story at The National here:  https://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/pioneering-uae-research-monitors-vital-signs-by-radar-1.1002005

A team of researchers from Khalifa University’s System-on-Chip Lab (SoCL) have contributed to the advancement of energy-efficient wearable electronic devices with extended battery life, and documented their contributions in a new book on power management integrated circuits for wearables. The co-authors include KU’s Dr. Dima Kilani, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and SoCL Director, and Dr. Hani Saleh, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The book, titled “Power Management for Wearable Electronic Devices,” is published by Springer, one of the leading international science and technology publishers. As Khalifa University celebrates…

Khalifa University's System on Chip Lab (SoCL) held its first Open House on Wednesday, 20 November at the Main Campus. The SoCL Open House provided a platform for SoCL faculty, researchers, and students to highlight how they are advancing microsystems research using SoCL’s advanced facilities. The SoCL is the only research lab in UAE with a comprehensive range of expertise in analog, digital, and RF that can deliver integrated system-on-chip and electronics circuits and system solutions for various applications targeting near-market research. The lab Director Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, opened the event with an…

PhD student Lilas Alrahis won Best Paper Award for her paper titled “ScanSAT: Unlocking Obfuscated Scan Chains,” at the Applied Research Competition - MENA Region, one of nine competitions held in association with the New York University’s Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) 2019, which took place from 6-8 November 2019. Her winning paper addresses a key security issue arising out of the shifting microelectronics supply chain landscape. “The dramatic increase in fabrication costs of Integrated Circuits (ICs) has led to the globalization of the IC supply chain, raising concerns regarding IC piracy, reverse engineering, and hardware Trojan insertion. ICs are the…

Researchers at Khalifa University’s System-on-Chip Center file patent for a novel low-cost glucose sensor that can measure glucose at neutral pH conditions, resulting in a lower-cost and more compact device The World Health Organization estimates that over 382 million people worldwide have diabetes, a metabolic disorder affecting blood sugar levels. The underlying cause of diabetes varies by type but each type can lead to excess sugar in the blood, which could cause serious health problems. For all patients, blood sugar monitoring plays a role in treatment. A research group led by Dr. Heba Abunahla, Postdoctoral Fellow of Electrical Computer Engineering…

Special Sessions to Examine Areas of Future Research for Co-Funding with Government Khalifa University will be hosting the three-day Mubadala-SRC Forum on artificial Intelligence (AI) in Abu Dhabi in order to define future research and development programs of AI hardware systems. To be held from 15-16 April 2019 at the Khalifa University Main Campus, the forum will have representations from regional and international technology leaders such as Intel, GlobalFoundries, IBM, NXP, Arm, Synopsys, Siemens, Texas Instruments, IMEC, and LETI, as well as Mubadala Investment Company and SRC. Keynotes and panel discussions will focus on identifying major challenges, opportunities, and the most…

Focus on Research into Artificial Intelligence to Develop Futuristic Devices that Bring Long-Term Benefits to UAE Cutting-edge research advances in robotics and drones-related technologies are being showcased by Khalifa University at the 14th edition of the International Defense Exhibition (IDEX 2019) and the fifth edition of Naval Defense Exhibition (NAVDEX 2019) in Abu Dhabi. Organized by (ADNEC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Defense and UAE Armed Forces, the twin events themed ‘Defense for Security and Safety’ run from 17-21 February 2019 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC). One of the projects on display at Khalifa University stand…