Simultaneous type and dimensional synthesis of articulated mechanisms for path-generation

This paper deals with a path-generation problem for articulated mechanisms using a truss-based ground-structure representation. The proposed method uses both cross-sectional areas and nodal positions as design variables and thus leads to a simultaneous type and dimensional synthesis. For the analysis part, it is essential to control the mechanism configurations so that the mechanism should stay within the same configuration space, thus stabilizing the optimization process and resulting in a realistic solution.