2 May 2009 The School of Engineering at The American University in Dubai recently organized the 4th IEEE Student Day on AUD’s campus. More than 50 student teams from different universities across the UAE participated and competed in various activities, including the highly coveted IEEE Senior Design Competition. The event was co-sponsored by the Dubai Cable Company Ltd (Ducab).

The event, which was held under the auspices of the UAE Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), rotates annually among universities in the UAE. In addition to AUD, the event brought together student teams from the American University of Sharjah; Ajman University of Science and Technology; United Arab Emirates University; BITS-Pilani Dubai; Higher Colleges of Technology; Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research; Michigan State University Dubai; the Petroleum Institute; and the University of Sharjah. The teams participated in competitions and workshops under the supervision of engineering professionals and faculty members from the participating universities. The organizing committee, chaired by Dr. Colin Christy of AUD, included Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty, staff, and students. More than 80 faculty members from different universities advised the participants and assisted with judging the various competitions. The jury, consisting of professors from all participating universities, ranked the projects based on factors such as innovation, design, operation, and functionality.

For the third year in a row, a team of Electrical and Computer Engineering students from AUD placed first in the Senior Design Project Contest. AUD students Saeed Samadi, Osama Muhammad Shuaib, Toufik Zitouni and Ibrahim Diab designed and assembled an autonomous robot system that tracks books on library shelves using RFID technology (report | presentation | poster | video). The robot compares the list of shelved books against the library’s catalog to generate an inventory of missing and misplaced books. A team from AUS came in at a close second with their signal harvesting system design, which utilizes ambient electromagnetic waves from cell phones to energize low power devices such as calculators. Third place went to students from the Petroleum Institute for their power system stability control project.

Commenting on the event, Dr. Alaa Ashmawy, Dean of the School of Engineering, congratulated the teams for their strong performance, and commended the organizers for making this year’s Student Day a success. “It was refreshing to see more than 300 students from 10 universities across the nation engage in inter-collegiate educational exchange and showcase their technical competence,” he said. At the conclusion of the event, the steering committee announced that next year’s IEEE Student Day will take place at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi.