This paper presents a comparative study of the dimensional synthesis of the path generating fourbar mechanisms using some heuristic optimization techniques. For this purpose, we implement the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) as a newly developed powerful optimization tool. The objective of the optimization algorithm is to minimize the tracking error of the mechanism coupler point. It is then modified to include the desired workspace limits. Furthermore, the paper presents an innovative method of imposing Grashof\\\\\\\'s law for generation of acceptable initial population to improve the optimization performance. In addition to the ICA, the paper implements the parallel simulated annealing approach for the cases of without and with prescribed timing. The results of our work will be finally compared to other heuristic algorithms such as GA, PSO and DE to provide a clear representation of the performance of each approach.

Keywords