Research Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2017, Vol. 9(9) 1–10
Ó The Author(s) 2017
Multi-objective optimization design of DOI: 10.1177/1687814017720053
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
cycloid pin gear planetary reducer

Yaliang Wang, Qijing Qian, Guoda Chen, Shousong Jin

and Yong Chen

Abstract
A multi-objective optimal model of a K-H-V cycloid pin gear planetary reducer is presented in this article. The optimal
model is established by taking the objective functions of the reducer volume, the force of the turning arm bearing, and
the maximum bending stress of the pin. The optimization aims to decrease these objectives and obtains a set of Pareto
optimal solutions. In order to improve the spread of the Pareto front, the density estimation metric (crowding distance)
of non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II is replaced by the k nearest neighbor distance. Then, the improved algo-
rithm is used to solve this optimal model. The results indicate that the modified algorithm can obtain the better Pareto
optimal solutions than the solution by the routine design.

Keywords
Cycloid speed reducer, planetary transmission, multi-objective optimization, evolutionary algorithm, density estimation

Date received: 11 January 2017; accepted: 15 June 2017

Academic Editor: Ismet Baran

Introduction between cycloid disk and housing rollers affected the

contact force, friction torque, and transmission effi-
Cycloid speed reducers have some excellent characteris- ciency. Hsieh6 proved the nonpinwheel design of
tics, such as compact structure, wide scope of ratios, cycloid speed reducer could effectively reduce vibra-
high transmission efficiency, low noise, and smooth- tion, stress value, and stress fluctuation.
ness. Thus, they are widely used in all kinds of mechan- In the engineering design, many multi-objective opti-
ical transmission. However, many design parameters mization problems (MOOPs) can be found. Some or all
and complex constraints in the reducer design bring objectives often conflict with each other; in other
more difficulty. At present, a lot of researches are avail- words, all objectives cannot achieve its own best value
able in this area. Chen et al.1 established the equation simultaneously.7 Thus, the policymakers need to choose
of meshing for small teeth difference planetary gearing the compromise design parameters according to the
and a universal equation of cycloid gear tooth profile
based on cylindrical pin tooth and given motion. He
et al.2 carried out optimum design and experiment on
Key Laboratory of Special Purpose Equipment and Advanced Processing
the double crank ring-plate-type pin-cycloid planetary Technology, Ministry of Education, Zhejiang University of Technology,
drive to reduce its noise and vibration. Sensinger3 pre- Hangzhou, China
sented a unified design method to optimize cycloidal
drive profile, efficiency, and stress. Blagojevic et al.4 Corresponding author:
Shousong Jin, Key Laboratory of Special Purpose Equipment and
introduced a new two-stage cycloid speed reducer, Advanced Processing Technology, Ministry of Education, Zhejiang
which was characterized by good load distribution and University of Technology, 18 Chaowang Road, Hangzhou 310014, China.
dynamic balance. Blagojevic et al.5 found the friction Email: [email protected]

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without
further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/
open-access-at-sage).
2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

reality. For the last decade and more, many classical 2. Pin gear (also called pinwheel). It is uniformly
multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) were distributed over the circumferential direction.
studied, such as the non-dominated sorting genetic The pin gear consists of the pin and pin sleeve.
algorithm II (NSGA-II),8 the improved strength Pareto 3. Cycloid gear. To keep the static balance of the
evolutionary algorithm (SPEA2),9 and the multi- input shaft and increase the loading capacity of
objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO).10 As the reducer, two identical cycloid gear structures
an efficient algorithm, NSGA-II has been widely used are usually adopted. The cycloid gears are
to solve MOOPs.11–13 Some researchers used NSGA-II installed on the dual eccentric sleeves, and their
to optimize gear reducers. Deb and Jain14 proved position differs 180°. In order to reduce the fric-
MOEAs can solve multi-speed gearbox design optimi- tion between eccentric sleeve and cycloid gear,
zation problem with more than one optimal goal and the turning arm bearing is installed between the
different kinds of design parameters. Tripathi and two parts.
Chauhan15 applied NSGA-II to optimize the volume of 4. Output mechanism. This reducer often uses the
gearbox and the surface fatigue life factor simultane- output mechanism that called pin axle type.
ously. Sanghvi et al.16 used NSGA-II to solve optimiza- There are some cylindrical pin holes on the
tion design problem of a two-stage helical gear train, in cycloid gear for inserting the cylindrical pins
which the bearing force and volume were optimized. (the cylindrical pin sleeve is mounted on the
Three optimization methods (MATLAB optimum cylindrical pin). Thus, the rotation motion of
tools, genetic algorithm, and NSGA-II) were com- cycloid gears can be output by cylindrical pins.
pared. It was shown that NSGA-II obtained better
optimization objective values than other methods. Li
et al.17 combined NSGA-II and fuzzy set theory to Theoretical tooth profile of cycloid gear
optimize dynamic model of steering mechanism and got As shown in Figure 2, rolling circle 2 is the circum-
the better result than the original design. However, far scribed circle of base circle 1, and the center of base cir-
too little attention has been paid to the research about cle 1 (Og ) is also the origin of rectangular coordinate
multi-objective optimal design of cycloid speed redu- system. According to the forming principle of cycloid
cers. Yu et al.18 and Yu and Xu19 selected volume as gear profile, supposing the base circle 1 is fixed, the
the optimization objective. Xi et al.20 selected volume locus of point M in circle 2 is a epicycloid when circle 2
and efficiency as optimization objectives, and the multi- scrolls from tangent point A to tangent point B. The
objective optimization model was solved by transform- rotation angle of the circle 2 (with the center O) around
ing it into a single-objective problem, which ignored the the circle 1 (with the center Og ) is denoted by u. The
relationship between objectives. Wang et al.21 focused rotation angle of circle 2 is denoted by ub and the abso-
on reducing the volume and improving the efficiency of lute angle of circle 2 is denoted by uh . The coordinates
reducers, and the optimal model was solved by the of a point on the theoretic profile of cycloidal gear can
MATLAB genetic algorithm toolbox. be expressed as
In this article, a multi-objective optimization model 
of reducer is established to minimize the volume of the x0 = Rz sin u  esinuh
ð1Þ
reducer, force of the turning arm bearing, and maximal y0 = Rz cos u  ecosuh
bending stress of the pin. It is expected to provide a new
way for multi-objective optimization design of cycloid
reducer and similar structural optimization problems.
Moreover, in order to improve the spread of the Pareto
front, the density estimation metric of NSGA-II is
replaced by the k nearest neighbor distance.

Optimization design model of the K-H-V

cycloid driver
Figure 1 shows the typical structure of the cycloidal
pinwheel transmission, which mainly consists of the fol-
lowing parts:

1. Planet carrier. It is composed of two parts,

namely, the input shaft and the dual eccentric
sleeves. Figure 1. Typical structure of cycloidal pinwheel transmission.
Wang et al. 3

Figure 2. Theoretical tooth profile of cycloid gear. Figure 3. Meshing force of pin gear and cycloid gear.

where Rz is the radius of the pin gear distributed circle, Fi is proportional to component of Du in the direction
e is the eccentric distance (e = Ob Og = (K1 Rz )=Zb ), K1 of Fi . That is
is the short amplitude coefficient (K1 = (rb =Rz ), rb is the
li
pitch radius of the pinwheel), and Zb is the tooth num- Fi }Ducosai = Du ð4Þ
ber of the pin gears (Zb = (uh =u)). Therefore, equation RZ
(1) can be expressed as where li is the vertical distance between Ob and the
  9 direction of Fi . When li is equal to rb , and Fi is equal to
x0 = Rz sin u  KZb1 sin Zb u = Fmax . That is
  ð2Þ
y0 = Rz cos u  KZb1 cos Zb u ; rb
Fmax } Du ð5Þ
Rz
According to the radius of curvature formula, the
radius of theoretical tooth profile of cycloid gear can In the triangle ObBP, sin ui = (li =rb ). According to
be expressed as equations (4) and (5), Fi can be expressed as

3 li
(1 + K12  2K1 cosub )2 RZ Fi = Fmax = Fmax sin ui ð6Þ
r0 = ð3Þ rb
K1 (1 + Zb ) cos ub  (1 + Zb K12 )
The maximum engaging force22 is shown as

Meshing force of pin gear and cycloid gear 4Tg

Fmax = ð7Þ
As shown in Figure 3, the angular velocity (vg ) of K1 Zg Rz
cycloid gear has the opposite direction on output tor- where Zg is the tooth number of the cycloid gear. In
que when pin gears are fixed. In the switching mechan- general, Tg = 0:55Tv , and Tv is the output torque.
ism, the rotation direction of cycloid gear and pinwheel Therefore, Fmax can be expressed as
are same. On the left side of the Y axis, pinwheels and
cycloid gear mesh, and the direction of force (Fi ) of the 2:2Tv
pin gear on the cycloid gear intersect with node P. On Fmax = ð8Þ
K1 Zg Rz
the right side of the Y axis, pin gears leave cycloid gear,
and there is no force between them. Supposing Tg rep- In the triangle PObOi, according to sine theorem,
resents the resistance torque of each cycloid gear, when sin ui can be expressed as
a torque with the equal value and opposite direction of
Tg is applied on the cycloid gear, the center of pin gear Rz
sin ui = sin ubi ð9Þ
has a tiny circumferential displacement Du. The size of POi
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Besides, according to cosine theorem, POi can be

expressed as
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
POi = R2z + rb2  2Rz rb cos ubi ð10Þ

Because K1 is equal to (rb =Rz ), POi can be expressed

as
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
POi = Rz 1 + K12  2K1 cos ubi ð11Þ

According to equations (6), (8), (9), and (11), Fi can

be expressed as Figure 4. Typical structure of a pin gear with two pivots.

2:2Tv sin ubi

Fi = qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð12Þ Maximal bending stress of the pin. The break in pin is one
K1 Zg Rz 1 + K12  2K1 cos ubi
of the main failure forms of this cycloid reducer. Hence,
minimizing the maximal bending stress of the pin is the
third sub-objection. For pin gear which has two ful-
Design variables crums (in Figure 4), the bending stress of the pin is
A vector which consists of five design variables is shown as follows
0 0
expressed as X = (Dz , dz , B, K1 , dw ), where Dz is the dia-
0
meter of the pin gear distributed circle, dz is the dia- Mw max 44L1 L2 Tv
sF ’ = ð15Þ
meter of the pin, B is the width of the cycloid gear, and 0:1d 0z 3 LK1 Zg Dz d 0z 3
0
dw is the diameter of the cylindrical pin. 0 0
where L1 = 0:5B + d +0:5D, L2 = 1:5B+d +d+0:5D,
0
and L = L1 + L2 = 2B + 2d + d + D. D is the thick-
0
Objective functions ness of the side wall of a pin gear housing. d is the
For the convenience, the input power, input speed, interval between cycloid gear and the internal face of
0

transmission ratio, turning arm bearing, and the num- the side wall, and in general, dz  D  B. The third sub-
ber of cylindrical pins are given. Under these premises, objective is presented as
the sub-objectives are presented as follows. 44L1 L2 Tv
min f3 (X ) = ð16Þ
LK1 Zg Dz d 0z 3
Volume of reducer. The radial dimension is affected by
the diameter of the pin gear distributed circle (Dz ) and
the diameter of the pin sleeve. The axle dimension is
Constraint conditions
affected by the width of the cycloid gear (B) and the
gap between two cycloid gears. Therefore, the volume Short amplitude coefficient. If the short amplitude coeffi-
can be expressed as20 cient is bigger, the minimal radius of theoretical tooth
profile of cycloid gear will be reduced, which will
p 0
decrease the outer radius of the pin sleeve, that is, the
min f1 (X ) = (Dz + dz + 2D1 )2 (2B + d) ð13Þ
4 contact strength of the cycloid gear and the pin gear
where D1 is the thickness of pin sleeve and d is the gap increases. According to equation (16), the bending
between the two cycloid gears. In general, d = b  B (b stress of the pin will increase with the decrease in the
is the width of the turning arm bearing). short amplitude coefficient. It suggests that the con-
straint range of the short amplitude coefficient is [0.45,
0.8];20 thus, the constraint equation can be defined by
Radial load on turning arm bearing. The service life of turn-
ing arm bearing largely depends on its radial load. It g1 (X ) = 0:45  K1  0 ð17Þ
further affects the service life of the speed reducer.
Hence, minimizing the radial load of the turning arm g2 (X ) = K1  0:8  0 ð18Þ
bearing should be considered. It can be expressed as
Cycloid tooth profile. To prevent cycloid tooth profile
2:6Tg Zb from undercut and sharp angle, the ratio of an external
min f2 (X ) = ð14Þ
K1 Dz Zg diameter of the pin sleeve to a diameter of the pin gear
Wang et al. 5

sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
distributed circle should be less than the minimum coef- Fi Ed
ficient of the theoretical tooth profile curvature radius sH = 0:418 ð26Þ
Brd
(amin ). Accordingly, this constraint can be defined by
0
where Fi is the meshing force in a certain position
(d + 2D1 ) between the pin gear and the cycloid gear, rd is the
g3 (X ) = z  amin  0 ð19Þ
Dz equivalent curvature radius of the contact point, and
Ed is the equivalent elastic modulus between the pin
where amin = (1 + K1 )2 =(1 + K1 + Zg K1 ).
gear and the cycloid gear. Since both materials are
GCr15 bearing steel, Ed is equal to 2:10 3 105 MPa.
Maximum diameter of the cylindrical pin hole. In order to The constraint can be defined by
guarantee the strength of the cycloid gear, there must sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
be a certain thickness (T ) between two adjacent cylind- Fi Ed
rical pin holes, and in general, T = 0:03Dz . Thus, the g8 (X ) = 0:418  sHP  0 ð27Þ
Brd
maximum diameter of the cylindrical pin hole meets the
following constraints where sHP is the allowable contact stress.

g4 (X ) = 2T  Dw + dsk + D1  0 ð20Þ
Bending strength of the pin gear. According to equation
p
g5 (X ) = T  Dw sin + dsk  0 ð21Þ (15), the constraint is as follows
Zw
where Zw is the number of cylindrical pins. Dw is the 44L1 L2 Tv
g9 (X ) =  sFP  0 ð28Þ
diameter of the cylindrical pin hole distributed circle, LK1 Zg Dz d 0z 3
which can be defined by
where sFP is the allowable bending stress.
dfc + D1
Dw = ð22Þ
2 Contact strength between the cylindrical pin and the cylindrical
where dfc is the diameter of the root circle of a cycloid pin hole. According to Rao,22 this constraint is as
gear. D1 is the diameter of the cycloid gear center hole, follows
which is also the external diameter of the turning arm sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
bearing. 10K1 Tv Dz
g10 (X ) = 0:0949  sHP  0
dsk is the diameter of the cylindrical pin hole, which Zw Dw B(rw2 Zb + Dz2K1 rw )
can be defined by
ð29Þ
dsk = dw + 2e ð23Þ where rw is the radius of the cylindrical pin sleeve,
which can be defined by
where dw is the external diameter of a cylindrical pin
sleeve. 0
dw
rw = + D2 ð30Þ
2
Pin-diameter coefficient. In order to guarantee the
strength of the pin gear housing and avoid the interface where D2 is the thickness of the cylindrical pin sleeve.
of pin gears, the value of pin-diameter coefficient (K2 )22
should be in the range of 1.25–4. Thus, this constraint Bending strength of the cylindrical pin. According to Rao,22
condition can be expressed as this constraint can be expressed as

g6 (X ) = 1:25  K2  0 ð24Þ 96Tv (1:5B + d)

g11 (X ) =  sFP  0 ð31Þ
g7 (X ) = K2  4  0 ð25Þ Zw Rw d 0w 3
0
where K2 = (Dz =(dz + 2D1 )) sin (p=Zb ).
Life of the turning arm bearing
 10
106 C 3
Contact strength of the cycloid gear and the pin gear. To pre- g14 (X ) = Lh  0 ð32Þ
60n F
vent the tooth surface from scuffing failure and fatigue
pitting, the meshing between the pin teeth and the where Lh is the turning arm bearing life, and Lh is usually
cycloidal gear teeth should meet the contact strength. equal to 5000 h; n is the rotating speed of the bearing; C
Using Hertz theory, the contact stress (sH ) between the is the dynamic load rating; F is the equivalent dynamical
pin gear and the cycloid gear can be expressed as load; and F = 1:2R (R is the radial load on bearing).
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 1. Pseudocode of k nearest neighbor distance.

k nearest neighbor distance

% chromosome consists of the decision variables, value of the objective functions and rank, and the rank of every individual is based
on non-domination.
% V is the dimension of decision variable space.
% M is the dimension of the objective space.
% population consists of the decision variables, value of the objective functions, rank and k nearest neighbor distance.
obj = chromosome (:,V + 1:M + V);
for i = 1: M
obj(:,i) = obj(:,i)/(max(obj(:,i))-min(obj(:,i))); %normalize sub-objectives
end for
n = jchromosomej; %number of solutions (individuals) in chromosome
for j = 1: n–1
for m = j + 1:n
Ej, m = kobj(j, : )  obj(m, : )k2 ; %the Euclidean distance between two individuals in objective space.
E(m,j) = E(j,m);
end for
E(j,j) = 0; %E stores the k nearest neighbor distance of every individual
end for
SE = sort(E,2); %sort the distance in ascending order
population = zeros(n, M + V + n);
population (:,1: M + V + 1) = chromosome;
population (:,M + V + 2:M + V + n) = SE(:,2:n);

Improved NSGA-II (NSGAN)

Non-dominated ranking and crowding distance are
adopted in NSGA-II to control the evolutionary popu-
lation size. The density estimation technique of the
crowding distance calculates the average distance of
two points on either side of this point along each of the
objectives. Sometimes, this method cannot completely
reflect the crowdedness between individuals. As shown
in Figure 5, supposing that d represents the unit of a
distance in objective space, the distance of solution A
(12d) is equal to that of the solution B (12d) according
to crowding distance. And, it can also be seen that B is
more crowded than A. However, the density estimation
metric of the k nearest neighbor distance9 can avoid Figure 5. Pareto front.
this case. Through the k nearest neighborpffiffiffi distance, the
first nearest neighbor
pffiffiffi distance of B (2 2d) is smaller
than that of A (3 2d), which means B is more crowded represents the number of the design variables. The two
than A. Hence, the density estimation metric of the k algorithms run 30 times independently. According to
nearest neighbor distance is introduced to improve the Table 2 and Rao,22 the range of design variables is
spread of Pareto front, and the improved algorithm is shown in Table 3.
marked as NSGAN. The k nearest neighbor distance The optimization procedure is shown in Figure 6. At
computation procedure is shown in Table 1. first, an initial population is randomly created in the
range of design variables, and the solutions utilize real-
number encoding. Second, compute the rank and k
Optimization design example
nearest neighbor distance for the every individual in
GCr15 material is selected for pin, pin sleeve, cycloid population. Then, the binary tournament selection,
gear, cylindrical pin, and cylindrical pin sleeve. The recombination, and mutation operators are used to cre-
main model parameters22 are shown in Table 2. ate an offspring population. In a binary tournament
NSGA-II and NSGAN are adopted to optimize this selection, a lower rank and bigger k nearest neighbor
model, respectively. The parameters in algorithms are distance is the selection criteria. NSGAN uses simu-
listed as following: population size N is 100, evolu- lated binary crossover and polynomial mutation. After
tional generation is 600, crossover probability pc is 0.9, that, the next population is selected from the offspring
and mutation probability pm is 1/n, where ‘‘n’’ and previously population based on the rank and k
Wang et al. 7

Table 2. Model parameters.

Parameters Values

Input power (kw) 4

Input speed (r/min) 1440
Transmission ratio 29
Number of the cylindrical pins, Zw 10
Contact stress, sHP (MPa) 850
Bending stress, sFP (MPa) 150
External diameter of turning arm bearing, D1 (mm) 86.5
Width of turning arm bearing, B (mm) 25
Rated dynamic load of the turning arm bearing, C (N) 64,900

Table 3. Range of design variables.

Design variables Interval Unit

Diameter of pin gear distributed circle 200<D

0
z <300 mm
Diameter of pin 8<dz <12 mm
Width of cycloid gear 12<B<17 mm Figure 6. Flowchart of optimization procedure based on
Short width coefficient 0:45<K 1 <0:8 –
0 NSGAN.
Cylindrical pin 12<dw <55 mm

nearest neighbor distance. If the maximal generation is

reached, output the result; if not, keep on evolving.

Spread test
There are three sub-objectives, and the spread indica-
tor23 is chosen to measure the spread of the Pareto front
corresponding to obtained solutions. The smaller this
value is, the more uniform the solutions distribute. The
indicator is defined as

P
m P  
d(Ei , O) + d(X , O)  d 
X 2O
i=1
D= P
m ð33Þ
d(Ei , O) + (jOj  m)d
i=1 Figure 7. Pareto front obtained by NSGA-II.

where O is a set of solutions, (E1 , . . . , Em ) are m extreme

solutions in the set of Pareto optimal solutions, m is the Compute the spread indicators of the Pareto front
number of objectives and obtained by two algorithms. The Pareto fronts obtained
by the two algorithms are shown in Figures 7 and 8.
d(X , O) = min kF(X )  F(Y )k ð34Þ
Y 2O, Y 6¼X Spread indicator statistical result is shown in Table 4.
From Figures 7 and 8, it can be shown that the
1 X
d= d(X , O) ð35Þ NSGAN gets a more uniform Pareto front than that
jOj X 2O
by NSGA-II. Table 3 shows a statistical result of the
Three extreme solutions (i.e. these solutions have a spread indicator. These data demonstrate that NSGAN
maximal sub-objective value) are selected among the obtains better result than NSGA-II in terms of the
obtained solutions based on the two algorithms. Their spread. In order to prove NSGAN has a significant
objective values are shown as follows: E1 (3.11e–3, role in the spread, a t-test is performed for the average
4746.33, 34.44), E2 (1.49e–3, 10756.94, 94.89), and E3 of the spread indicator by software SPSS. The signifi-
(1.43e–3, 8444.82, 150.00). Among them, E1 and E2 cance level is supposed as 0.05. The t statistic is 53.513,
come from NSGAN, and E3 comes from NSGA-II. and the corresponding two-tailed probability is 0.000.
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 8. Pareto front obtained by NSGAN.

Figure 9. Non-dominated Pareto front obtained by NSGAN.

Table 4. Average and standard deviation of the spread

indicator.

Algorithm Average Standard deviation

NSGA-II 0.6302 4.82e–2

NSGAN 0.1431 1.28e–2

Because the two-tailed probability is smaller than the

significance level, the null hypothesis is refused. It
shows that two algorithms have significant differences
in spread indicator.

Results analysis
Figure 10. Three sub-objectives are smaller than that of the
A total of 100 non-dominated solutions are picked out
routine design.
from 3000 solutions gained by NSGAN according to
rank and k nearest neighbor distance. The minimal sub-
objective solutions (volume, radial load of the turning Through the above analysis, NSGAN can obtain
arm bearing, or maximal bending strength of the pin) solutions for which the three sub-objectives are super-
are selected out from 100 non-dominated solutions. ior to that of the routine design. However, in the prac-
These solutions are Solution 1 (1.37e–3, 9188.71, tical design, due to some sub-objectives conflict with
149.93), Solution 2 (2.92e–3, 4741.87, 40.96), and each other, the designer has to make a compromise.
Solution3 (2.82e–3, 4853.17, 33.50). From three extreme For example, the designers can minimize the volume of
solutions, three sub-objectives cannot reach minimum the reducer and maximal bending stress of the pin, but
together. Figure 8 presents the Pareto front of 100 non- appropriately increase the radial load of the turning
dominated solutions. In addition, the sub-objectives of arm bearing under the constraints, i.e., make a compro-
the routine design22 are also shown in Figure 9. mise. Depending on this situation, some preference
Next, the solutions for which the three sub-objectives solutions are selected from the 100 non-dominated
are all smaller than that of the routine design are picked solutions. For the better comparison, Figure 11 shows
out from Figure 9, which are shown in Figure 10. There the relationship between volume and radial load of the
are eight total solutions whose three sub-objectives are turning arm bearing, and Figure 12 illustrates the rela-
smaller than that of the routine design. Table 5 presents tionship between volume and maximal bending stress
the design variables and sub-objectives of these eight of the pin. When the volume increases, the radial load
solutions and the routine design. Besides, the design of the turning arm bearing will be reduced. Moreover,
variables are rounded under the premise of meeting the according to equations (14) and (15), the f1 (volume)
constraints. and f2 (radial load of the turning arm bearing) are
Wang et al. 9

Table 5. Design variables and sub-objectives.

Design method Design variables Sub-objectives

Diameter of Diameter
0
of Width of Short width Cylindrical
0
f1 (m3 ) f2 (N) f3 (MPa)
pin gear pin, dz (mm) cycloid gear, coefficient, K1 pin, dw (mm)
distributed circle, B (mm)
Dz (mm)

Routine design 240 10 17 0.75 20 2.16e–3 6322 80.38

NSGAN 233.313 9.526 12.000 0.798 21.726 1.80e–3 6112 78.08
Rounded values 233 9.5 12.0 0.80 21.7 1.80e–3 6105 78.57
NSGAN 242.837 9.469 12.000 0.800 22.297 1.94e–3 5858 76.07
Rounded values 243 9.5 12.0 0.80 22.3 1.94e–3 5854 75.33
NSGAN 232.986 10.501 12.350 0.787 19.916 1.83e–3 6207 61.38
Rounded values 234 10.5 12.4 0.79 20.0 1.83e–3 6156 60.98
NSGAN 251.541 9.447 12.000 0.800 20.545 2.07e–3 5655 73.90
Rounded values 252 9.4 12.0 0.80 20.5 2.08e–3 5645 74.78
NSGAN 244.282 9.913 12.000 0.800 19.079 1.97e–3 5823 66.73
Rounded values 244 9.9 12.0 0.80 19.0 1.96e–3 5830 67.04
NSGAN 239.075 11.332 12.932 0.799 21.988 1.96e–3 5958 48.66
Rounded values 239 11.3 13.0 0.80 22.0 1.96e–3 5952 49.07
NSGAN 252.159 10.355 12.000 0.799 20.482 2.10e–3 5649 57.48
Rounded values 252 10.4 12.0 0.80 20.5 2.09e–3 5645 56.77
NSGAN 251.534 11.170 12.002 0.798 22.283 2.10e–3 5670 46.99
Rounded values 252 11.2 12.0 0.80 22.3 2.11e–3 5645 46.44

Figure 11. Volume of the reducer and radial load of the Figure 12. Volume of the reducer and maximal bending
turning arm bearing. strength of the pin.

conflicting. The increase of volume can reduce the max- according to Figure 12. These five preference solutions
imum bending stress of the pin to a certain extent. sacrifice the second sub-objective, but the first sub-
However, the maximum bending stress of the pin is not objective is obviously improved.
entirely dependent on volume, and equation (16) shows
that short amplitude coefficient can also have impact
on maximal bending stress of the pin. Conclusion
In Figures 11 and 12, there are five magenta prefer-
ence solutions. As shown in Figure 11, the second sub- A multi-objective optimization model of a cycloid pin
objective (radial load on bearing) is bigger than that of gear planetary reducer with the goals of minimizing the
the routine design, but the first sub-objective (volume) volume, the radial load on turning arm bearing, and the
is smaller than that of the routine design. Meanwhile, maximal bending stress of the pin is considered in this
the third sub-objective (maximal bending strength of article. The density estimation technique of NSGA-II is
the pin) is also smaller than that of the routine design improved using the k nearest neighbor distance. The
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

improved algorithm (NSGAN) is used to solve the multiobjective optimization. In: Proceedings of the evolu-
multi-objective optimization design model. Although tionary methods for design, optimization and control with
some sub-objectives conflict with each other, the applications to industrial problems, Athens, 19–21 Sep-
MOEA can optimize these sub-objectives simultane- tember 2001, pp.95–100. Barcelona: CIMNE.
ously. NSGAN obtains more uniform Pareto fronts 10. Coello CAC, Pulido GT and Lechuga MS. Handling
than NSGA-II, and the Pareto front can present the multiple objectives with particle swarm optimization.
IEEE T Evolut Comput 2004; 8: 256–279.
relationship between sub-objectives, which is more con-
11. Pasandideh SHR, Niaki STA and Asadi K. Bi-objective
venient for the designers to select design solutions. optimization of a multi-product multi-period three-
echelon supply chain problem under uncertain environ-
Declaration of conflicting interests ments: NSGA-II and NRGA. Inform Sciences 2015; 292:
57–74.
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
12. Brownlee AEI and Wright JA. Constrained, mixed-
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
integer and multi-objective optimization of building
article.
designs by NSGA-II with fitness approximation. Appl
Soft Comput 2015; 33: 114–126.
Funding 13. Kamjoo A, Maheri A, Dizqah AM, et al. Multi-objective
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup- design under uncertainties of hybrid renewable energy
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this system using NSGA-II and chance constrained program-
article: This work was supported, in part, by a grant from ming. Int J Elec Power 2016; 74: 187–194.
Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China 14. Deb K and Jain S. Multi-speed gearbox design using
(Nos LY16G010013, LY17E050023, and LQ16E050012), multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. J Mech Design
National High-Tech R&D Program of China (No. 2003; 125: 609–619.
2015AA043002), and National Natural Science Foundation 15. Tripathi VK and Chauhan HM. Multi objective optimi-
of China (No. 71371170). zation of planetary gear train. In: Proceedings of the
simulated evolution and learning-international conference,
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