Dynamic bacterial foraging optimization algorithm to optimal design of parallel manipulators

The design process of parallel manipulators is very difficult because it needs to solve problems such as more constraint variables, complex interference situations and long design periods and so on. This paper proposes a bacterial foraging optimization algorithm based on dynamic piecewise variable step size to optimize structural parameters. The workspace volume of the parallel manipulator is obtained by the method of polar boundary search based on the inverse kinematics and then influences of the structural parameters on the workspace are studied. Afterwards the optimization objective functions about the workspace are solved by the improved bacterial foraging optimization algorithm under the condition of the mechanism constraints. Compared with the initial designs, the results show that the structural parameters can increase the workspace after optimizing, which verifies the effectiveness of the improved algorithm proposed by this paper.