Optimal Design of Electrothermal Microactuators for Many Criteria by Means of an Immune Game Theory Multiobjective Algorithm

Abstract

The paper presents the application of the IMGAMO (immune game theory multiobective algorithm) in the optimal design of electrothermal microactuators. Several numerical tests on the mathematical benchmark test functions were performed, showing the superiority of the IMGAMO, when a large number of criteria are considered, in comparison to other multiobjective optimizers. A parametric numerical model of an electrothermal microactuaror was developed and verified. Six functionals, which depend on various thermal and mechanical quantities of the microactuator, were proposed, formulated and numerically implemented. These functionals represent real requirements asked of microactuators. The boundary-value problem of an electro-thermo-mechanical field was solved multiple times during the course of optimization by way of the finite element method (FEM). A numerical example of multiobjective optimization of chevron-type electrothermal actuators is included in the paper. Representation of the multi-dimensional Pareto fronts by means of scatter plot matrices, aided by self-organizing maps (SOMs), is presented. The novel method of selecting interesting, compromise-solutions is proposed and described.

Task feasibility of V shape electrothermal actuators

“…The optimizations in ( 27) and ( 28) are carried out using MATLAB software based on sequential quadratic programming algorithm. Figure 8 shows the characteristic force-displacement curve for the initial configuration, minimum Z configuration (27) and the optimal configuration with minimum thickness (28). The characteristic curves in Figure 8 are obtained from the analytical expressions (i.e.…”

“…However, this does not lead to efficient and optimized performance. Few studies [28,29] presented formal optimization procedure for improving certain characteristics of the V shape actuator. The design optimization of a V shape electrothermal actuator is investigated in this paper from task feasibility perspective and based on the governing expressions from the modeling.…”

Double-objective optimization of electro-thermal (E-T) micro-actuator for fiber switch

“…However, the method is possible to get unstable estimation due to the random selection of sampling points. An optimal design using immune game theory multi-objective algorithm is presented in [19]. Although many factors including stress, volume, heat and deflection are considered, the calculation model for force is still lacking of accuracy.…”

“…Although many factors including stress, volume, heat and deflection are considered, the calculation model for force is still lacking of accuracy. From these researches above, the shortcomings are summarized as follows: (a) less precision in numerical calculation model for displacement or force of the actuator used in some researches [15,16,19], which directly decreases the credibility of the optimization, (b) defect of the search methods applied in the optimization [14,15], which brings the difficulty of getting ideal result, (c) only the single objective considered in most work [18], which is not fit with its application.…”