Heuristic Combinatorial Optimization in the Kinematic Design of Mechanisms—Part 1: Theory

Abstract

The heuristics developed by Dr. Shen Lin in the communications field have been extended and applied to the design of mechanism. The basic approach involves the use of an intelligent partial search, which moves from randomly selected starting points and is conducted effectively over the entire solution space. It is a non-numerical technique, the convergence of which is essentially independent of continuity, differentiability, or the starting point of the search. The method requires less computational capacity and time than most conventional optimization techniques. It appears well suited for complex (i.e., realistic) mechanisms design. In this part we describe the theory.