Optimal Design of a Novel Rescue Accessory with Spreading and Supporting Functions

Abstract

A novel rescue accessory with spreading and supporting functions is proposed to promote the performance of usage continuity and improve the rescue efficiency of traditional rescue devices. To optimally design this rescue device, we apply related working principles to analyze the motion of the whole device and its spreading mechanism. In optimization, three important parameters of the spreading width, the jaw rotation angle, and the spreading force are simultaneously chosen as the objective functions. Meanwhile, specific mathematical models are established for estimating the performance of the novel rescue accessory. Then, an improved algorithm based on the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (INSGA-II) is proposed to solve the above multiobjective optimization problem of the rescue accessory. The INSGA-II optimizes the population diversity, the crossover operator, and the mutation operation in calculation procedures. Furthermore, it can dynamically adjust the crowded distance and enhance the global as well as the local searching capabilities of INSGA-II. Results from computational tests show that INSGA-II has the best performance among other popular algorithms. More importantly, comparison results show that the compromise solution of the Pareto front for the above three objective functions obtained by INSGA-II is superior to those by other algorithms.