Excellence Award

The United Arab Emirates University proudly acknowledges the outstanding achievement of Dr. Luqman Ali from the College of Information Technology and Eng. Muhammad Swavaf from the UAEU Emirates Centre for Mobility Research. They were honored with the AI and IoT Excellence Award 2023 in the Government Track for their remarkable contribution.

Under the guidance of Dr. Fady Alnajjar, Associate Professor at the College of Information Technology, and Dr. Hamad Aljassmi, Associate Professor and Director of the Emirates Centre of Mobility Research, their collaborative effort led to the development of an AI-driven pavement integrity monitoring system. This innovative project addresses road safety and sustainability challenges.

Dr. Hamad Al Jassmi, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering & Director of Emirates Center for Mobility Research, highlights the project's significance. They developed cutting-edge vision-based deep learning models for automated pavement condition assessment. These models prove to be more efficient and cost-effective than traditional manual and laser-based methods. The exceptional accuracy achieved by the vision-based models signals a bright future for automating numerous civil engineering tasks.

Dr. Luqman Ali, Research Associate at the Emirates Center for Mobility Research, emphasizes the use of publicly available and custom datasets collected from various UAE roads. The proposed system not only detects pavement cracks but also accurately assesses their severity.

Dr. Fady Al Najjar, Associate Professor at the College of IT and Head of the Autonomous Mobility Research Group at the Emirates Center for Mobility Research, expresses gratitude for the project winning the first place in the government track at the IEEE AI and IoT Excellence Award in 2023.

Eng. Muhammad Swavaf, Research Assistant at the AI & Robotics Lab, College of IT, envisions the project's future impact, exploring automation possibilities that could replace conventional practices in the civil engineering and infrastructure sector.