Agricultural Robotics and Intelligent Farming

Research overview

Food security is a critical global challenge and a strategic priority for the UAE. Dr. Hussain established agricultural robotics as a strategic research direction in collaboration with Silal and other industrial partners.

This program integrates robotics, artificial intelligence, sensing, and digital technologies for precision agriculture and autonomous food production.

Research activities include robotic pollination, crop monitoring, AI-enabled disease detection, fruit-quality sensing, autonomous greenhouses, digital twins, mobile robots, and robotic manipulation for agriculture.

The program aims to improve productivity, sustainability, and resource efficiency in arid and controlled-environment agriculture. It directly supports UAE priorities in food security, sustainability, and technological innovation.

Research focus

Four startup initiatives: TouchRIPE for fruit firmness sensing; PollenMATIC for assisted pollination; Plant-AI for plant health inspection; and AerialYield for crop imagery analysis and yield estimation.

Further projects include SortRIPE, OmniRIPE, HumaRipe, TeleRIPE, and PackRIPE, with work on laser weeding and PhenoAgent.

• Robotic Pollination
• Disease Detection
• Fruit Quality Sensing
• Autonomous Greenhouses
• Food Security