AI driven Robotics is a powerful technology poised to have a disruptive societal and economic impact, with the potential to solve some of the pressing grand challenges of our era. KUCARS is now the premier robotics research centre in the UAE and the region, with a thriving community of top multidisciplinary robotics experts, state of the art research labs, a rich portfolio of projects, and increasing industry collaborations. The next phase of KUCARS will focus on four distinct but scientifically related Themes, based on embodied AI platforms: (a) Unmanned Cars (b) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and (c) Unmanned Marine Vehicles and (d) Unmanned Manipulators. KUCARS scientific research will focus on increasing robot autonomy in unstructured environments by developing AI driven algorithms for: (a) Perceive and know, (b) Learn, and predict, and (c) Reason, interact and do. KUCARS will focus on a rich set of industry driven applications, including autonomous transport, infrastructure inspection, ocean exploration and dessert agriculture. Our goal is to produce top research outcomes and innovations of global significance and to make KUCARS an internationally leading robotics research centre.
The overall KUCARS mission is to develop next generation robot systems, generating intellectual property, human capital, infrastructure, and local expertise and know how. The core mission of KUCARS will include:
The research mission of KUCARS is to create AI driven Robot Systems that can observe, learn, predict, interact, and evolve in complex real-world scenarios. KUCARS will focus on three fundamental AI Robotics research challenges:
(a) Actively Observe and Perceive – Develop robots that observe and adapt incrementally and persistently, to perceive the physical world, requiring minimum knowledge prior to deployment,
(b) Learn, Predict and Reason – Develop robots that autonomously learn, predict, reason and plan in an uncertain world, while executing complex tasks, and
(c) Physically Act, Interact, Adapt and Cooperate – Develop robots that take safe and effective actions, and interact with humans and the environment.
KUCARS has the vision to be amongst the top robotics labs in the world within the next three years, by driving excellence in robotics research, innovation, translation and education.
