A group of UAE students won the national category in the Drones for Good contest for coming up with a practical idea for a drone to improve government services in the Emirates. Their entry, the Wadi Drone, was designed to help local authorities track the country’s diverse flora and fauna in remote desert and mountain areas, where sending a person to do it could harm the natural environment or even be a risk to the person’s safety. Wadi means ‘valley’ in Arabic.

 

Already – the Wadi Drone is making the work of conservationists easier. It’s being used in the UAE’s Fujairah’s Wadi Wurayah National Park and there are plans to expand it to other areas throughout the country.

 

Using commercial drone technology and proprietary software, it flies for up to 40 km at a time over the UAE’s mountainous park, wirelessly downloading photographs from 120 camera traps on the ground that capture images of wild animals at the park as they pass in front of a motion sensor. It’s already snapped images of Blandford fox, Gordon’s wildcat, hedgehogs, Caracal lynx and goats.

 

Previously the data was collected twice a year, but with the introduction of the Wadi Drone, data can be collected once a month. The drone will also make monitoring easier in summer months, as previously a helicopter had to be deployed when it was too hot to trek.

 

The Wadi Drone winning team is comprised of four NYU Abu Dhabi students: Martin Slosarik, Ting-Che Lin, Vasily Rudchenko, Kai-erik Jensen, advised by visiting instructor and research associate, Matt Karau. In developing the drone, the team joined forces with the Emirates Wildlife Society and the Wadi Wurayah National Park.

 

The team plan to use the AED 1million ($273,000) prize to fully implement the Wadi Drone project in Wadi Wurayah National Park and they hope to expand it regionally and internationally.