A generic framework for ETW-based dimensional synthesis of parallel mechanism

In this paper, a general dimensional synthesis framework for parallel mechanisms is established based on the effective transmission workspace (ETW) model. Firstly, differential variational operators are added to the population updating strategy of Teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm to accelerate the population updating speed, and named as Accelerated teaching-learning-based optimization (ATLBO) algorithm. Then, typical function examples and mechanical optimization design examples are used to prove that ATLBO algorithm has obvious performance improvement compared with TLBO algorithm. Finally, based on the screw theory, the dimensional synthesis model for ETW maximization is proposed, and ATLBO is applied to solve the optimal structural parameters. Comparison of the calculated ETW indexes before and after the optimization shows that the dimensional synthesis model of this paper for parallel mechanism is workable and effective. This work provides a modeling solution for the dimensional synthesis problem of space mechanism.