DAMMAM: Saudi scholarship student Muhammad Ghulam, studying mechanical engineering in the American Rhode Island state, stood first in the university design competition sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The competition is designed for developing practical, innovative airport technologies to address real challenges facing the aviation industry.

Ghulam, from King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, said: “I won the first prize in the airport operations and maintenance category after successfully passing the task of designing a system to improve methods for detecting and removing debris and stray pieces of material that could potentially damage an aircraft on a runway. This is what happened in 2000, when the Concorde plane exploded while takeoff due to such materials.”

The invention that addresses the issues of Foreign Object Debris (FOD), which is one of the major challenges in the aviation industry, is distinct from other debris removal systems in that no extra vehicle is needed to sweep the airport surfaces, he said.

Ghulam said the machine is designed to be retrofitted between the front and rear axles of baggage carts at airports because such carts are stationed all the time in the outer arenas of airports where such debris are often found.