Optimization-based mechanism synthesis using multi-objective parallel asynchronous particle swarm optimization

Abstract

A distributed variant of multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) called multi-objective parallel asynchronous particle swarm optimization (MOPAPSO) is presented, and the effects of distribution of objective function calculations to slave processors on the results and performance are investigated and employed for the synthesis of Grashof mechanisms. By using a formal multi-objective handling scheme based on Pareto dominance criteria, the need to pre-weight competing systemic objective functions is removed and the optimal solution for a design problem can be selected from a front of candidates after the parameter optimization has been completed. MOPAPSO's ability to match MOPSO's results using parallelization for improved performance is presented. Results for both four and ve bar mechanism synthesis examples are shown.