Synthesis of Compliance Linkage Mechanism Based on Topology Optimization and Image Processing Techniques

Abstract

Compliance mechanisms have been used in the design of soft grippers or flexible mechanisms, whose mobilities came from the flexibility of their members rather than the rigid parts in the mechanisms. Compliance linkage mechanisms, that are composed of multiple straight linkages, are simple to manufacture and could be easily applied to the desired gripper designs. One way to synthesize the compliance linkage mechanisms is Topology Optimization (TO). TO methods have been well developed for structural and multidisciplinary designs in terms of finding the optimal objective functions subject to constraints of loading conditions and other design requirements. In practical uses, clear black-and-white optimal designs (i.e. structural design with nonfuzzy distribution of elemental members) are desired but may not be delivered at the end of the TO procedures. Therefore, many additional treatments such as regularization and filtering have been developed to produce black-and-white designs. Some of the said procedures were also found in the fields of computer vision and image processing. This paper presents a method to automatically generate linkage designs by applying image-processing techniques to TO designs. The presented post-processing procedure includes noise removal, pattern thinning, and automatic determination of linkage nodes linages. Several numerical examples were shown to demonstrated the presented methodology for automatic linkage designs.