A TABU SEARCH METHOD FOR THE OPTIMIZATION OF FLUID-POWER CIRCUITS

This paper describes the development of an efficient algorithm for the optimization of fluid power circuits. The algorithm is based around t he concepts of Tabu search, where different timescale memory cycles ar e used as a metaheuristic to guide a hill climbing search method out o f local optima and locate the globally optimum solution. Results are p resented which illustrate the effectiveness of the method on mathemati cal test functions. In addition to these test functions, some results are presented for real problems in hydraulic circuit design by linking the method to the Bathfp dynamic simulation software. In one such exa mple the solutions obtained are compared to those found using simple s teady state calculations.