DESIGN OF FUNCTION-GENERATING FOUR-BAR LINKAGE FOR OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE.

A method of synthesis is developed for the so-called normalized four-bar linkage, i. e. , a linkage whose connecting rod is of unit length and in the initial position is parallel to the reference axis. The method is then applied to the synthesis of a function-generating linkage on which up to five constraints are imposed in the form of precision points of the first order. In the task of finding the linkage with optimal performance, the number of precision points is reduced by n (where n equals 1, 2, 3, 4) and the problem of optimization becomes a search for the minimum of an error functional in an n-dimensional space.