5 Emirati female students turn a graduation project into an “air shield” to monitor air quality

Five female students at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Fujairah succeeded in developing an applied graduation project, which they were able to turn into a prototype of a smart system for monitoring air quality, called the “Emirati Air Shield.” It operates via drones equipped with precise sensors and machine learning algorithms that capture pollution indicators and analyze them in real time, allowing for enhancing the efficiency of environmental monitoring and speed of response.

The project was supervised by the Fujairah Science Club, and the project adopted an applied methodology focusing on addressing environmental challenges with scalable technical means, to work as a proactive system that reads the scene from above and issues an early warning that supports the country’s goals in sustainability and quality of life. The project won the “Best Innovation and Impact of Scientific Research” award at the Tenth International Conference on Information Technology Trends (IIT-2025), organized by the Higher Colleges of Technology in Dubai Academic City, amid praise from the jury committees that considered it “one of the projects capable of achieving “Making a tangible impact in the field of environmental sustainability.”

The project is titled “The UAE Air Shield for Detecting Air Pollution Using Drones,” and was created by the students: Maryam Saif, Maryam Tahnoun, Zainab Saleh, Aisha Fahd, and Sheikha Ahmed, after receiving extensive training from the Fujairah Science Club, which included the fields of scientific research, engineering design, 3D printing, code programming, and data analysis.

Student Maryam Saif said that the idea of ​​the project stemmed from the desire to employ technology to serve the environment, by creating a smart way to monitor air pollutants in industrial and urban areas, explaining that “the smart aircraft is capable of collecting air quality data and analyzing it instantly, then sending it to a central base that allows the competent authorities to make accurate and quick environmental decisions.”

Student Maryam Tahnoun explained that the experimental model of the aircraft was equipped with a set of high-precision sensors to measure the levels of polluting gases in the atmosphere, in addition to a graphical analysis unit that relies on machine learning algorithms to interpret data in real time, noting that the results demonstrated the system’s ability to analyze weather changes quickly and with high response.

Student Zainab Saleh confirmed that the project opens the way in the future to establish a network of small environmental aircraft that work in a coordinated manner to cover large areas of cities and industrial areas, so that they become “aerial eyes” that monitor changes in air quality and contribute to developing immediate response plans to reduce pollution.

While the two students, Aisha Fahd and Sheikha Ahmed, dedicated this achievement to everyone who supported and guided the team during the project stages, they said: “We dedicate this achievement to everyone who supported and guided us, and we hope that our project in the future will turn into a smart national platform that contributes to monitoring air quality in Emirati cities, in line with the country’s vision of sustainability and environmental protection.”

For his part, Director of the Fujairah Science Club, Dr. Saif Al-Maili, said that the project represents a practical model for integrating academic education with applied training in a stimulating research environment, and reflects the level of environmental awareness among the country’s students, adding that the club works to support such ideas and transform them into implementable innovations and field development.

Al-Maili stressed that developing smart environmental systems has become a priority for the next stage in light of global climate changes, pointing out that the project completed by the students has great scientific and societal value, and can form the nucleus of advanced local technologies in the field of air quality monitoring.

Maryam Saif:

• The idea of ​​the “project” stemmed from the desire to employ technology to serve the environment.

Maryam Tahnoun:

• The plane model was equipped with precise sensors to measure the levels of polluting gases in the atmosphere.

Zainab Saleh:

• The “project” opens the way in the future to establish a network of small environmental aircraft.