الأخبار

By Danial Yusof

REMBAU, 6 September 2020: IIUM’s Centre for Unmanned Technology (CUTe) under the Kulliyyah of Engineering has produced a small unguided rocket for use by the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) through collaboration with Aero Lestari Industry Sdn. Bhd.

The rocket named ‘STAR X Smokey Sam’ is targeted for military training for simulation of surface to air rocket launching during military pilot exercise. It is made from polymer-based material which is not harmful to the aircraft during the exercise.

According to Asst. Prof. Dr. Muhammad Hanafi Azami, who is the team manager for the project, all this while RMAF had imported the smoke rocket for their training, therefore IIUM’s CUTe took the opportunity to produce it locally through such collaboration.

Dr. Hanafi said, “The company had sponsored RM20,000 for this project and our targeted customer is TUDM, where we will produce around 50 rockets with specifications mainly from the military, and IIUM is part of the team to design and develop this.”

He said this during the launching ceremony of National Science Week for Negeri Sembilan by Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin, held at UiTM Rembau campus, which was participated by around 20 companies to showcase their projects and researches.

A complete system of STAR X consists of Rocket Motor, Igniter and Wireless Launching System.

Meanwhile, according to the Director of Centre for Unmanned Technology (CUTe), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zulkifli Zainal Abidin, the centre aims to market several of its products soon in which their main goal now is to focus on Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV).

“The surface vessel is capable of performing autonomous operations under long endurance missions in hostile maritime and inland environment, where the operations include search and rescue, maritime patrol and surveillance, environmental monitoring and underwater mapping,” Dr. Zulkifli said. ***

Source: https://news.iium.edu.my/?p=14...