Liping Ding

Structural static testing is paramount for validating the structural integrity of critical aerospace components. However, conventional test rigs are often constrained to fixed loading axes and frequently induce parasitic torques. Accurate reproduction of aero-engine pylon flight loads therefore requires a mechanism that combines omnidirectional vector loading, high stiffness, and efficient force transmission. Achieving these coupled requirements is primarily a geometric synthesis problem, yet the associated workspace, stiffness, and load–capacity indices are nonlinear, mutually coupled, and expensive to evaluate over dense pose samples. To address this optimization bottleneck, this work develops a task-specific 6-UPS loading mechanism and a bio-inspired sensitivity-weighted NSGA-II algorithm for its geometric synthesis. Inspired by gene/locus-specific heterogeneity in biological evolution, the algorithm assigns variable-wise search intensities according to design-variable sensitivities, which are estimated using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS). In this way, influential design genes receive stronger local exploitation, whereas less sensitive ones retain broader exploration. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces computation time from about 30 h to 3 h relative to direct optimization with the baseline NSGA-II, while simultaneously improving workspace, stiffness, and load-carrying capacity. A hybrid physical prototype was further tested under 240 loaded pose conditions; the system maintained force magnitude errors below 0.64% (63.42 N) and directional deviations below 1.15°. These results support the efficacy of the proposed bio-inspired optimization-based design methodology for high-fidelity static testing of aero-engine pylons under the adopted hybrid setup.

This article proposes a flexible surgical robot featuring strong magnetic steering achieved by a hemispherical magnet array actuation, and high‐accuracy ultrasonic position sensing achieved by a beacon total focusing method (b‐TFM). The hemispherical magnet array with magnetic focusing is described and its array parameters are optimized through finite element analysis to increase the magnetic field for actuation. The magnetic field strength at 100 mm for the array with the same mass as the cylindrical magnet is about 1.8 times higher than that of the cylindrical magnet. Using the magnet array actuation, the flexible robot exhibits the capability of agile steering to navigate along a predefined trajectory. In addition, a 1 mm × 1 mm lead zirconate titanate (PZT) patch is embedded into the tip of the flexible robot as a beacon for b‐TFM ultrasonic imaging to detect the position of the robot. Therefore, the entire navigation process can be executed under the supervision of the ultrasonic position sensing system, and the maximum error is 0.8 mm when the steering radius is 100 mm.

Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) cellular structures of Ti6Al4V with theoretically calculated relative densities ranging from 4% to 22.6% were designed using a toolpath-based construction method and fabricated by laser powder bed fusion, and their macrostructure, microstructure, and compression performance were investigated. The results indicated that the macrostructure was the same as that of TPMS structures designed using the traditional method. In contrast, the microstructures of the as-built samples and the samples after stress-relief annealing were slightly different from those of the traditional ones. Moreover, compression test results of the Schwarz-P structures showed that the compressive modulus was positively related to the calculated relative density, and a Gibson-Ashby model was established to quantitatively describe the relationship between the compressive modulus and theoretical relative density. The findings of this work show that the mechanical performance of a TPMS structure obtained using a toolpath-based construction design can be accurately predicted using geometric parameters or printing toolpaths. This will be helpful during the design stage.