Meet the winners in AI/Robotics category

While drones are slowly taking over the world, robotics are following closely behind. Millions of dirhams were given away to teams who built robotic inventions for the Dubai competition.

Daniel Waleed from the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and his team won Dhs1 million in the national category of the UAE AI/Robotic for Good Awards.

Waleed, 24, and his partners worked tirelessly for three years to build the In-Pipe Inspection Robot, which detects gas leaks inside pipes.

He said: “The purpose of our project is to detect gas leaks in pipelines. The research took us two years, we had three prototypes initially. The first and second one took us one year each and it took us six months to combine both robots to build the final one.

“We have three sensors in the robot, which allows us to cover the entire pipe. It can also detect where the pipe is leaking. When it’s going through the pipeline, it can tell the operator that a leak has been detected.”

Joel Gibbard and his team from the UK bagged $1 million in the international category of the award. Their project, called ‘Open Bionics’, consisted of a bionic arm.

Gibbard said: “Open Bionics is 3D printed, affordable and are advanced robotic arms for amputees. There’s a huge need for advanced robotic limbs and we wanted to make something that was really advanced technology and affordable. The money is going to be incredibly useful. It’s going to hospital certifications and providing these limbs to young patients.”