A new computer-aided design and simulation system for planar linkages

This thesis presents a new computer-aided linkage design and simulation system for task driven path generation problem. Mechanism design is considered a mixture of science and art. The former is about utilizing computers to rigorously sizing a mechanism in meeting a set of design requirements. And the latter is about taking advantage of designers' experience to narrow down design domain and speed up the design process. The ultimate goal of the presented design system is to incorporate both science and art into the linkage design process by (1) developing an automatic design framework based on library searching and optimization techniques and (2) developing an interactive design framework based on advanced human-computer interfaces. To enable the design automation framework, we first built a library of open and closed planar curves generated by commonly used planar linkages. We then turned the classical linkage path generation problem into a library searching problem together with a local optimization problem. To enable the interactive design framework, we developed a set of design interfaces that facilitate designers intervene and steer the design process. This hybrid design system was developed based on our existing VRMDS (Virtual Reality Mechanism Design Studio) framework. The result is a versatile mechanism design tool that is beneficial to the early stages of the mechanism design process.