APU Team Crowned Gold At ITEX 2022

 

 

APU Team from the Center for Research and Development of IoT (CREDIT) has managed to secure yet another GOLD Award at the 33rd International, Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition (ITEX 2022), since our last Gold award in 2019 which was before the pandemic.

The project which was crowned Gold was a Firefighting Drone capable of autonomous flight and could be deployed for firefighting autonomously.

 

 

While drones continue to get more powerful, one thing that stays the same is its ability to quickly reach a vantage point where humans cannot easily get access to. 

 

With this in mind, the team developed an autonomous flying platform to make people's jobs easier and more efficient through better information gathering and surveying. The Firefighter Drones can be sent to fire locations as scouts, using fire extinguisher retardant balls which incorporates an AI swarm model with cloud analytics of IoT sensor data that coordinate with the ground station to maximise its firefighting capability.

 

Stepping up to the challenge was Rabah Anakkachery (Team Leader), Aaron Raj Bhatti, Sharen Chrisan Fabian Perera, Zifaan Abdulla, Ng Joo Kiat, Ryan Teo Han Ji & Cajun Tai Ka Joon, Mechatronics Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering & Computer Engineering students from CREDIT at APU.

 

From planning to executing the idea, this firefighting drone took the team 12 months to construct the project from zero to hero.

 

As the mentor of the team, Ir. Narendran Ramasenderan expressed his excitement with the following: -

 

“The project aims to reduce civilian harm and property damage from fire incidents through an autonomous drone solution. It can immediately respond and aid in evacuation of the civilians through laser-guided sensors which cut through smoke and other elements. It also uses its artificial intelligence solution to determine the best strategy to control or extinguish fire with its payload.”

 

“Apart from supplying firemen with fire characteristics from an aerial view, it can work with them to extinguish the fire with real-time fire analytics. The team worked on a novel solution using the skills and knowledge they acquired in their engineering degree programme at APU.”

 

The judging process was not an easy one, as participants will need to satisfy the following criteria to be qualified as a potential gold medalist:

APU’s Team was handpicked to receive the gold award for their ability to map out big fire incidents to coordinate firefighting efforts between humans and drones, as well as its creativity and capability to put out fire remotely from a safe distance which won the heart of the judges.

Special Thanks to Prof. Dr. Ir. Ts. Vinesh Thiruchelvam, and Mr. Krishna Ravinchandra for the guidance and support throughout this project.

 

 

The ITEX 2022 offers a space for local and international inventors and research scientists to present their inventions and innovations to a business community keen on commercialising unique inventions.

 

With the theme Beyond Invention, ITEX 2022 was held successfully in KL Convention Centre Malaysia. The Hybrid Exhibition features close to 500 invention inventions of ground-breaking technology and continues to widen borders to encourage participation from a diverse range of exhibitors.