Application of Improved Particle Swarm Optimization in Vehicle Crashworthiness

Abstract

In the optimization design process, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is limited by its slow convergence, low precision, and tendency to easily fall into the local extremum. These limitations make degradation inevitable in the evolution process and cause failure of finding the global optimum results. In this paper, based on chaos idea, the PSO algorithm is improved by adaptively adjusting parameters r1 and r2. The improved PSO is verified by four standard mathematical test functions. The results prove that the improved algorithm exhibits excellent convergence speed, global search ability, and stability in the optimization process, which jumps out of the local optimum and achieves global optimality due to the randomness, regularity, and ergodicity of chaotic thought. At last, the improved PSO algorithm is applied to vehicle crash research and is used to carry out the multiobjective optimization based on an approximate model. Compared with the results before the improvement, the improved PSO algorithm is remarkable in the collision index, which includes vehicle acceleration, critical position intrusion, and vehicle mass. In summary, the improved PSO algorithm has excellent optimization effects on vehicle collision.