Haptic Interface For A Master Slave Robotic Gripper

A Master-slave haptic gripper system to recreate the feeling of relative hardness of different test objects is designed and built. Haptic is defined as dependent on feeling by touch rather than by sight. Haptic interfaces are devices which enable human to interact manually with virtual environments

Design and Development of a Solar Thermal Collector with Single Axis Solar Tracking Mechanism

The solar energy is a source of energy that is abundant in Malaysia and can be easily harvested. However, because of the rotation of the Earth about its axis, it is impossible to harvest the solar energy to the maximum capacity if the solar thermal collector is placed fix to a certain angle. In this research, a solar thermal dish with single axis solar tracking mechanism that will rotate the dish according to the position of the sun in the sky is designed and developed, so that more solar rays can be reflected to a focal point and solar thermal energy can be harvested from the focal point. Data were collected for different weather conditions and performance of the solar thermal collector with a solar tracker were studied and compared with stationary solar thermal collector

Tomato Automation Cultivation System: Automatize Watering and Fertilizer Based On Sensory Information

This research is to build a tomato watering and fertilizing machine for household-based agriculture. The objective is to reduce the work of planting the tomato tree, keeping the tomato tree stays healthily, and increase the interest of the people on the innovative agriculture in the household. This project aims to increase the efficiency of planting tomato, by reducing the tomato growth period and promoting the innovative way of planting. The planting of tomato tree in the household environment has a high chance of suffering diseases such as black spot disease, mould leaf disease, and yellow leaf disease, due to reasons of poorly controlling of temperature, watering, and humanity. The outcome of this automated cultivation machine can prevent the tomato trees away from the above-mentioned diseases. In conclusion, the automated cultivation machine provides an eco-farming environment that closes to the natural environment and the tomato tree not only grow healthy but also speed up the growing process in the machine. Moreover, the size of the machine is suited to household and promotes the interest of the people in household-based agriculture

Molecular characterisation of the tick Rhipicephalus microplus in Malaysia: new insights into the cryptic diversity and distinct genetic assemblages throughout the world

Abstract Background The morphotaxonomy of Rhipicephalus microplus complex has been challenged in the last few years and prompted many biologists to adopt a DNA-based method for distinguishing the members of this group. In the present study, we used a mitochondrial DNA analysis to characterise the genetic assemblages, population structure and dispersal pattern of R. microplus from Southeast Asia, the region where the species originated. Methods A phylogeographic analysis inferred from the 16S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) genes was performed with five populations of R. microplus collected from cattle in Malaysia. Malaysian R. microplus sequences were compared with existing COI and 16S rRNA haplotypes reported globally in NCBI GenBank. Results A total of seven and 12 unique haplotypes were recovered by the 16S rRNA and COI genes, respectively. The concatenated sequences of both 16S rRNA and COI revealed 18 haplotypes. Haplotype network and phylogenetic analyses based on COI+16S rRNA sequences revealed four genetically divergent groups among Malaysian R. microplus. The significantly low genetic differentiation and high gene flow among Malaysian R. microplus populations supports the occurrence of genetic admixture. In a broader context, the 16S rRNA phylogenetic tree assigned all isolates of Malaysian R. microplus into the previously described African/the Americas assemblage. However, the COI phylogenetic tree provides higher resolution of R. microplus with the identification of three main assemblages: clade A sensu Burger et al. (2014) comprises ticks from Southeast Asia, the Americas and China; clade B sensu Burger et al. (2014) is restricted to ticks that originated from China; and clade C sensu Low et al. (2015) is a new genetic assemblage discovered in this study comprising ticks from India and Malaysia. Conclusions We conclude that the R. microplus complex consisting of at least five taxa: R. australis, R. annulatus, R. microplus clade A sensu Burger et al. (2014), R. microplus clade B sensu Burger et al. (2014) and the new taxon, R. microplus clade C sensu Low et al. (2015). The use of COI as the standard genetic marker in discerning the genetic assemblages of R. microplus from a broad range of biogeographical regions is proposed