An open-source tool for path synthesis of four-bar mechanisms

Abstract

Four-bar mechanisms are widespread in industrial and quotidian applications, but their design requires deep knowledge and experience in Mechanisms and Machine Theory. In this area, path synthesis is a common problem. It consists in calculating the length of the bars defining a mechanism so that a particular point of its structure follows the desired trajectory. This paper presents SALAR Mechanism Synthesizer, a new open-source software package that aims to be an easy-to-use yet powerful tool for addressing this kind of problem. This tool offers four different optimizers from the literature, one of them specially designed for mechanism synthesis. It also includes a new method for expressing and comparing paths, and hence, to define the optimization criterion. This method, referred to as normalized shape-descriptor vector(s) (NSDV(s)) and presented in this paper, allows us to handle paths without being affected by translation, rotation, and scale changes. The software package has been used for addressing six well-known problems from the literature. According to the results achieved, it arises as a valuable tool in terms of accuracy, convenience, and availability.