Synthesis of adjustable spherical four-link mechanisms for approximate multi-path generation

•Multiple desired coupler paths each prescribed by a large number of points•Optimization based synthesis of adjustable spherical four-link mechanism•Least square based plane fitting approach•Efficient due to the lesser number of parameters in the search space•Synthesis of driving mechanism for flapping wing micro air vehicle

An optimization based method is presented for the synthesis of adjustable spherical four-link crank–rocker mechanisms for approximate multi-path generation. The synthesis is done in two stages, first the driving dyad of the spherical mechanism is determined and then the remaining parameters are determined. The method uses a least squares based plane fitting procedure and this results in a lesser number of design variables for optimization than existing approaches. Two numerical examples, including one dealing with generating two different trajectories of a flapping wing micro air vehicle, are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed synthesis method.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide