MechSynth
MechSynth is my dissertation (Automated Design of Planar Mechanisms) and its extension where planar mechanisms are automatically synthesized to user specifications. Generally, there have been numerous attempts at synthesizing four- or six-bar mechanisms. But in this dissertation, by addressing fundamental issues relating to generalization and scalability in computational representation, kinematics and optimization, we have been able to synthesize multiple planar mechanisms on a generic level for the same user requirement.
An illustration can be seen in these videos: http://goo.gl/PZNXwY http://bit.ly/1hkPr6h.
MechSynth makes use of important elements such as GraphSynth, Objected-Oriented Optimization Toolbox (OOOT) and the online (and advanced) version of kinematics tool PMKS
The next steps in advancing MechSynth are
- Increasing the joint types and types of mechanisms that can be handled by MechSynth
- Adding additional capabilities to the online PMKS tool (currently being developed by Prof. Campbell)
- Implement search/optimization algorithms to yield results faster
- Tackle problems related to practical applications such as design of prosthetics and in animatronics
- Implement a cloud-based design and teaching resource
nanosynth
nanosynth is an effort where existing techniques in grammar-based computational representation,search-optimization, semantic-web, big-data and reasoning are combined to automatically generate conceptual designs for micro/nano scale applications.
The objective here is to abstract models using existing experimental data. Using these models, schemes can be developed to automatically generate designs and process plans without having to recreate those time-consuming experiments.
The different steps in this research are as follows.
- Identify key segment
- Develop computational representation scheme
- Implement search/optimization algorithms to generate results
- Compare computational results with laboratory experiments
- Implement a cloud-based resource