Ajman University Students Win Best Poster Award at Zayed University’s International Student Research Competition 2026
Ajman University students achieved a remarkable academic milestone by winning the Best Poster Award during their participation in the Student Research Competition 2026, organized by the Zayed University, for their innovative project “NeuroX” in the field of medical rehabilitation.
This achievement was earned by a team from the Department of Biomedical Engineering for their project titled “NeuroX: A Hybrid EEG-EMG Digital Twin Framework for Upper Limb Rehabilitation.” The student team includes Amna Muhammad Ashfaq, Aeashah Abdulmalek Alkubaisi, Nasima Mohammad Helal, Mahrah Ahmed Al Ghareeb, and Hana Mahmoud Abdelaal, under the supervision of Prof. Kamran Arshad, Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, and Engr. Wessam Shehieb, Deputy Director of the Ajman University Innovation Center and an instructor at the College of Engineering and Information Technology.
The project aims to improve rehabilitation methods and make them more accurate and effective by addressing one of the key limitations of traditional approaches: the difficulty of measuring whether the brain is effectively communicating with the muscles during recovery. NeuroX is a non-invasive system that combines brain signals and muscle signals to create a digital twin of upper limb movement, enabling the measurement of movement intention and actual execution in real time, while providing interactive visual feedback to support patient progress throughout the rehabilitation journey.
The project is currently in the prototype stage and has been tested on healthy participants to verify signal efficiency, calibration accuracy, and feedback mechanisms. The system has shown strong performance, with the EEG model achieving approximately 88% accuracy in detecting movement intention, alongside reliable tracking of muscle activity.
The team is working on further developing the project through expanded testing and clinical trials, with the goal of implementing it in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics, in addition to making it available for home use to allow patients to continue therapy remotely. NeuroX also stands out for its ability to connect movement intention from the brain with actual muscle execution, giving it a competitive advantage over traditional solutions that focus only on tracking movement.
This year’s competition witnessed strong competition with participation from 10 countries: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Jordan, Latvia, and Morocco. The competition received 166 submissions across abstract and full paper categories, of which only 98 were accepted. In the poster abstracts category, only 5 winners were selected out of 51 entries, reflecting the high level of competition and rigorous academic standards.
This achievement reflects Ajman University students’ excellence in scientific research and innovation and highlights the University’s growing presence in international research competitions, as well as its commitment to supporting projects that provide practical and impactful solutions in the healthcare sector.