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Most children with cerebral palsy (CP) have difficulties in standing and walking. They would normally require assistive device to help in standing and walking. This paper describes the process that was carried out to design a wearable brace for the lower limb. This brace is intended to provide support during standing and walking for ambulant CP children. Design requirements were drawn up by conducting surveys and interviews with parents, CP child caregivers, and CP children. Safety is very crucial for the device, where special care is made to ensure it would not pose any hazard to the children and also the caregivers. Based on these information and the anthropometric measurements, the device has been designed and analyzed using 3D CAD software. From the analysis, the device shown to function as expected.

The periodical inspection of boiler header and tube is considered important to avoid power plant shutdown due to failures caused by degradation, creep, corrosion, thermo-mechanical loading and others. The boiler header inspection robots developed by our research center, namely “MK-02” and “LS-01”, are only able to inspect the boiler header but unable to travel in and examine the boiler tube condition. This paper introduces a boiler tube inspection robot with magnetic wheeled which is able to inspect the inner surface of 45 mm ferromagnetic tube. The detailed design and analysis of Boiler Tube Inspection Robot “ND-01”are presented. The experimental results proved that the proposed system was able to work efficiently. With further research, the proposed design is expected to improve the inspection of boiler tube or small pipe efficiency.

Robotik telah menjadi satu subjek yang biasa ditawarkan dalam kebanyakan institusi pengajian tinggi di negara ini. Walaupun terdapat banyak robot–robot yang boleh dibeli di pasaran, kebanyakannya adalah untuk kegunaan perindustrian dan berkos tinggi. Terdapat keperluan untuk menghasilkan robot berkos rendah untuk kegunaan mahasiswa dan mahasiswi di institusi pengajian tinggi negara dalam mempelajari elemen–elemen robotik seperti reka bentuk, kinematik, dinamik, penderiaan dan kawalan. Kertas kerja ini membentangkan proses merekacipta dan membangunkan satu robot SCARA dengan 4 darjah kebebasan berkos rendah yang boleh digunakan untuk tujuan pembelajaran, penyelidikan dan juga pameran. Kertas kerja ini membincangkan kaedah yang digunakan dalam reka bentuk dan pembangunan robot SCARA termasuk definisi spesifikasi, reka bentuk konseptual, pembangunan produk, dan uji kaji. Dalam fasa definisi spesifikasi, parameter robot SCARA akan ditetapkan terlebih dahulu. Selepas itu, reka bentuk konseptual terbaik akan dipilih selepas membuat penilaian terhadap semua konsepkonsep dalam fasa reka bentuk konseptual. Kemudian, dalam fasa penghasilan produk, reka bentuk yang terpilih akan disempurnakan lagi. Kemudian, analisis tegasan menggunakan analisis unsur terhingga akan dijalankan sebelum prototaip dihasilkan. Kinematik langsung dan songsang, dinamik robot kemudiannya dikaji. Komponen–komponen akan dipilih berdasarkan parameter–parameter hasil analisa dan pengiraan. Komponen elektronik seperti pengesan dan pengawal menggunakan pengawal mikro kos rendah kemudiannya dipasang. Akhirnya, robot SCARA yang dihasilkan akan diuji untuk melihat sama ada ia menepati sasaran parameter–parameter yang telah ditetapkan. Kata kunci: Robot SCARA; RRPR; kinematik dan dinamik; robot Robotics have become a common course in a lot of higher institutions. Although there are many robots available in the market, most of them are for industrial purposes and are costly. There is a need to develop low cost robots for students in higher institutions to learn the elements of robotics such as design, kinematics, dynamics, sensing and control.The aim of this project is to design and develop a mechanical structure of a SCARA robot that can perform certain tasks for educational, research and exhibition purposes such as pick and place operation. The paper discusses the steps used in design and development of a 4 degree of freedom (DOF) SCARA robot which includes specification definition, conceptual design, product development, and testing. In specification definition phase, the specifications of the SCARA robot are first determined. After that, the best conceptual design of the SCARA robot is chosen after making concept evaluation in the conceptual design phase. Then, in third phase which is the product generation, the chosen design of the SCARA robot is fine–tuned. Stress analysis using finite element analysis is carried out before a prototype is developed. The direct and inverse kinematics, dynamics of the robot are then modeled. Off shelf parts are also selected based on the derived parameters from calculations. Electronic parts such as sensors and dedicated controller using low cost microcontroller are then developed. Finally, the developed SCARA robot is tested to see whether it fits the targeted specifications. Key words: SCARA robot; RRPR; kinematics and dynamics; educational robotics; microcontroller