Efficient constrained synthesis of path generating four-bar mechanisms based on the heuristic optimization algorithms

•The ICA is implemented for path generating four-bar mechanisms for the first time.•We bound the workspace of the coupler link to some feasible limits.•The paper presents an innovative method of imposing Grashof's law.•In addition to the ICA, the paper implements parallel simulated annealing (SA).•The ICA shows the best performance compared to other heuristic methods.

This paper presents a comparative study of the dimensional synthesis of the path generating four-bar mechanisms using some heuristic optimization techniques. For this purpose, we implement the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) as a newly developed powerful optimization tool. The objective of the optimization algorithm is to minimize the tracking error of the mechanism coupler point. It is then modified to include the desired workspace limits. Furthermore, the paper presents an innovative method of imposing Grashof's law for generation of acceptable initial population to improve the optimization performance. In addition to the ICA, the paper implements the parallel simulated annealing approach for the cases of without and with prescribed timing. The results of our work will be finally compared to other heuristic algorithms such as GA, PSO and DE to provide a clear representation of the performance of each approach.