KACST, KAUST joint panel to monitor projects

The King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) will form a joint scientific committee between the two sides to follow the progress of their joint ventures.
The agreement was reached between the two parties during a meeting between Prince Dr. Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed Al Saud, president of KACST and Dr. Jean-Lou Chameau president of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology held at the KACST headquarters in Riyadh on Tuesday.
The two parties pledged to take cooperation to new heights in the field of science and technology at local and global levels.
The meeting also reviewed the cooperation between the KACST and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and with the Ministry of Labor to support such programs and achieve the objectives of the partnership between government agencies, universities and research centers.
During the meeting, KAUST requested KACST to nominate a number scholars and researchers to represent Saudi Arabia at the third Arab American Frontiers symposium organized by the university at its headquarters in December. The meeting is to attract young researchers from 21 countries from the Arab League.
The meeting will convene US and Arab scientists, engineers and medical professionals to discuss major scientific advances on a wide array of topics under the overarching theme of “Sensing Technologies, Networks and Applications.”
This program brings together outstanding young scientists, engineers and medical professionals from the United States and the countries of the Arab League for a series of symposia to discuss advances and opportunities in their fields. The goal of these meetings is to enhance the scientific exchange and dialogue among young researchers in Arab countries and the United States, including the Arab science diaspora, and through this interaction, facilitate research collaboration within and beyond the region. 
Recently, KACST and KAUST joined efforts in developing autonomous sensing systems under the supervision of Prof. Khaled Abdullah Alhussan, director of the Space and Aeronautics Research Institute at KACST.
The focus was on two research projects of mutual interest. The objective of the first project is to prototype an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based flash flood monitoring and forecasting system, while the second project is aimed at augmenting UAV navigation systems with vision to improve take-off and landing performance through data fusion.
The other project undertaken by the KACST and KAUST is developed jointly by Profs. Sundaramoorthi and Claudel. It involves UAV inertial navigation systems that are augmented with vision systems. The vision helps improve the performance of the UAV during the critical take-off and landing phases, in which the uncertainty associated with the navigation systems (for instance, the GPS, gyroscopes, accelerometers) play a major role.