The NEU-AV Team, comprised of Electrical and Electronics Engineering students from the Faculty of Engineering at Near East University, stood out among 90 teams at the “2026 MathWorks and Quanser Autonomous Vehicle Student Competition” held in France, securing a place among the top 10 finalist teams.
Near East University, ranked among the top 500 universities in the world, has achieved another remarkable international success. The NEU-AV Team, which conducts its research within the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering at Near East University, advanced to the finals of the “2026 MathWorks and Quanser Autonomous Vehicle Student Competition”, held as part of the “IEEE/ACM CPS-IoT Week 2026” in France, and managed to be among the top 10 university teams in the world.
The conference, organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), two of the world’s most prestigious organizations in the fields of electrical, electronics, and computer engineering, was held in Saint-Malo, France. Considered one of the important international events in the field of cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things, the competition held within the scope of the conference saw a total of 90 teams from different universities around the world compete. The NEU-AV Team, which attracted attention with its successful performance in the first stage of the competition, achieved a significant success by being among the 10 select teams that reached the final. The team consists of Bashar Nabil Omar Hudhud and Md. Arafat, fourth-year students in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Near East University. Their academic advisor is Assist. Prof. Dr. Arya Saboury.
The NEU-AV Team competed with its autonomous driving system developed using the “MATLAB”, “Simulink”, and “Quanser QCar 2” platforms. During an intensive work process lasting approximately two months, the team designed advanced autonomous driving algorithms in the areas of sensing, path planning, and real-time control. Thanks to the system developed in a MATLAB/Simulink-based simulation environment, the vehicle demonstrated robust and reliable navigation performance.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Arya Saboury: “This success belongs not only to our team but also to everyone at Near East University who believes in the potential of our students.”
Assist. Prof. Dr. Arya Saboury, a lecturer in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Near East University and the academic advisor of the team, emphasized the importance of studies in the fields of autonomous robotics and intelligent systems in her assessment of the achievement. Dr. Saboury stated that their research focuses particularly on uncertainty-aware anomaly detection for safe robot navigation, and that such international competitions offer students a critical experience in combining their theoretical knowledge with real engineering problems. She stressed that academic studies conducted in the fields of robotics, mechatronics, control, and intelligent vehicle technologies directly contribute to the students’ project processes. Saboury stated that the performance of the NEU-AV Team is a tangible result of this holistic educational approach.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Saboury said, “It is a true privilege to be part of this university’s academic family. I sincerely thank the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Prof. Dr. Bülent Bilgehan, for his support and encouragement. His trust in our team and his commitment to promoting student success have been truly motivating for us. Being selected for the final stage is a meaningful expression of our students’ dedicated work and technical competence. The Faculty of Engineering of Near East University has created an environment where innovation and ambition are truly nurtured. I am honored to be a part of this institution. This success belongs not only to our team but also to everyone at Near East University who believes in our students’ potential.”
