Al ain: Khalifa University of Science and Technology today announced that it is presenting four innovations in the Second Emirates Agricultural Conference and Exhibition 2026, from 22nd to 26th April 2026 at ADNEC Centre Al Ain.
According to Emirates News Agency, the four participating innovations were developed through the University's research programmes in collaboration with industrial partner SILAL. These innovations include TouchRIPE, PollenMATIC, Plant AI, and AerialYield, each addressing challenges in agricultural productivity, food quality, and resource efficiency.
The Agricultural Conference and Exhibition serves as a strategic national platform bringing together farmers, investors, government agencies, research institutions, and industry experts to exchange knowledge and advance sustainable agriculture.
Professor Ebrahim Al Hajri, President of Khalifa University, emphasized the importance of agriculture in the UAE's food security agenda. He noted that the University is committed to ensuring its research contributes to this national priority. The innovations are designed specifically for the region's conditions and reflect the belief that the path to food security involves applied science and homegrown technology.
The four innovations span modern agricultural technology, from harvest assessment to crop health monitoring and pollination. TouchRIPE, the UAE's first fruit ripeness testing device with a US patent published, uses a wearable thumb-mounted sensor and embedded AI to assess fruit ripeness and firmness directly on the tree in seconds, without damaging the produce.
Plant AI provides AI-powered disease detection for greenhouse management, achieving a 98.5 percent accuracy rate across 10 plant types, and offers a dashboard for real-time facility monitoring. Its advanced features include vision-language models trained on real farm data and a multi-agent assistance system.
PollenMATIC, a joint startup with SILAL, provides an affordable handheld pollination device using vibration-based smart actuation technology, suitable for crops like tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and cucumbers.
AerialYield, also developed with SILAL, utilizes drone-based scanning and AI ripeness detection for automated yield estimation. It feeds data into a smart greenhouse dashboard, offering growers a comprehensive view of crop conditions over large areas.