Abstract
The focus of this paper is on the synthesis of path generation mechanisms based on shape optimization. The principle component analysis (PCA) technique used in image processing is employed to represent the desired coupler curve of the mechanism and simulated annealing is used as the optimization tool. PCA representation is invariant under rotation, translation, scaling, and starting point. Once a shape-optimized mechanism is found, it is translated, rotated, and scaled to its final form. An illustrative example is introduced to demonstrate the proposed method.