Uncertainty and Cost Based Robust Design Approach for Quality Consistency of Electromagnetic Actuators

Abstract

In order to cope with the fierce competition in the marketplace, the design and optimization of cost-effective, high-quality and highly reliable electromagnetic actuators presents various challenges. In particular, uncertainties in the manufacturing process inevitably lead to large deviations between the actual output characteristics and the theoretical design values. State-of-art have not considered cost and uncertainty comprehensively enough, and although they can improve batch consistency, the design optimization solution given may not be optimal. To address this issue, this paper proposes an adaptive robust tolerance design (RTD) method that simultaneously considers multiple uncertainties, contribution rate fluctuation, manufacturing cost and quality loss. A quantitative model of epistemic uncertainty is proposed, which can effectively describe the variation of epistemic uncertainty. A cost model and a cost contribution rate model are then proposed, which can realistically reflect the changes in manufacturing cost and cost contribution rate during the optimization process. In addition, a new adaptive RTD method is proposed by combining the traditional RTD method, the uncertainty model and the contribution rate model, which can propose an optimization solution closer to the actual one with minimal cost increase. Finally, the validity of the method is verified using an electromagnetic actuator as an example.