Saturday 27 / July / 2024
Muscat: With the participation of 26 students from various universities and colleges in the Sultanate of Oman; the final qualifiers for the Oman Artificial Intelligence Drone Competition began on Monday.
It is being organised by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology in partnership with Sultan Qaboos University and with the support of the Omani Qatari Telecommunications Company (Ooredoo Oman), OQ, the Sohar Industrial Port Company, the Omani Liquefied Natural Gas Company, and the Oman Horizon Company.
The final stage of the competition includes two tracks: the (manual control) track in which 16 participants will participate. They will be asked to control the drone using a manual remote control to carry out several tasks related to inspecting industrial facilities designed in the form of models in the “flying” arena.
The second track is the “Autonomous Control Enhanced by Artificial Intelligence” track, in which 10 participants will take part. They will be asked to use artificial intelligence tools and the “Python” language to programme the “drones” to carry out the tasks of inspecting and tracking industrial facilities within the flying arena, independently and without human intervention.
The competition aims to enhance community awareness of drones and their multiple uses and benefits, and build and refine participants’ skills in terms of how to build, control, and fly them, and integrate them with the requirements of artificial intelligence systems.
It also aims to enable Omani youth to actively participate in producing technical solutions and thus contribute to building an economic market, providing jobs in the field of drones, and qualifying participants to compete in regional and international competitions.
It is worth noting that more than 120 participants attended the preparatory workshops; 50 of them qualified for the competition’s training camp and 26 contestants were selected for the final stage.
