Synthesis Of Planar Compliant Mechanisms

This paper introduces a compliant mechanism design method that guarantees structural connectivity and planarity of the resulting design. The structural connectivity is ensured by a path-representation, while a coin-optimization process is introduced to verify the planarity of the design. A non-planar design can be "planarized" by a coin-repair process, thus all non-planar designs can be effectively excluded from the solution space. The discrete topology optimization problem is incorporated in a genetic algorithm. The resulting topology is further processed through size and shape optimization for improved stress distribution. The results from two benchmarking design examples showed that the proposed method is capable of producing planar mechanisms in a reasonable amount of computing time. The presented design method will be incorporated into an on-going research in the design of biomimetic wings for Micro-Aerial Vehicles (MAVs).