Khalifa University's latest inventions

The students were showcasing their works at the Engineering Innovation Day.

Ammar Alsheghri, along with his colleagues Abdullah Al Hammadi and Mohammed Humood (not pictured), showcased their Solar Thermal Desalination Unit. Lee Hoagland/The National

KU-Rise: Automatic Window-Cleaning System:

This offers an efficient and fast way to clean windows on high-rise buildings. The pneumatic system is able to clean on vertical surfaces using a slider mechanism and a rotating brush, along with a spray unit. A water tank in the middle of the system supplies the water to wash the windows. The vertical movement of the system is controlled by a lifting mechanism placed on top of the building. Its cleaning capacity is five square metres a minute. The machine was built in eight months by Mohammed Abu Abdo, Mohammed Shehada and Ruba Saleh, students in mechanical engineering.

Smart Wi-Fi Mobile Data-Acquisition System Architecture for Biomedical Applications:

Many hospital patients must be connected to an electrocardiograph (ECG) machine and monitored by doctors. Conventional wires connect ECG sensors to patients. This system uses Wi-Fi to create a portable data-acquisition system capable of using other devices, such as laptops, smartphones and tablets. The mobile Wi-Fi-based system can capture an analog or digital signal at a sufficient speed to make it available through a Wi-Fi module. It was built in six months by Lama Mahmoud, Amina Belkadi, Tasneem Assaf and Tamador Alboshra, students in communication and electronic engineering.

Solar Thermal Desalination Unit:

Seawater is preheated through a vacuumed condenser. It then flows inside a tank to be indirectly heated by a heat-transfer fluid. That circulates inside a flat plate solar collector facing south to absorb solar energy. After the temperature rises, it goes through an expansion valve and flashes in a vacuumed chamber to form brine and vapour. The vapour moves to the condenser and forms freshwater by losing latent heat. The machine was built in four months by Abdullah Alhammadi, Mohammed Humood and Ammar Alsheghri, students in mechanical engineering. * Caline Malek