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Abstract
The purpose of this document is to describe in detail the capstone project that was completed to fulfill the graduation requirements for a Master of Science in Engineering degree at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The goal of the project was to develop a low-cost incubator for newborns that can be built and maintained in developing nations to support the reduction of newborn deaths caused by hypothermia. For this project, the term “low-cost” was defined as any incubator for which the manufacturing cost is less than four thousand American dollars [$4,000.00]. Following the review of an extensive literature on incubators, including an assessment of current products and solutions, the design of a control system for temperature and humidity for a low-cost infant incubator was carried out, along with the design of a physical enclosure. The design process featured a careful evaluation of relevant International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC] standards to ensure that the design would meet requirements associated with the standards. A mathematical model of the control system was developed and simulated using MATLAB and Simulink, respectively. SolidWorks was employed to design the enclosure, and ANSYS was used to verify the materials performance of the design. The use of additive manufacturing was investigated as the means of manufacturing the incubator, but was rejected because of cost. A complete Bill of Materials [BoM] was developed to verify that the proposed incubator can be produced at a cost less than the design goal of four thousand American dollars.