Design Method for Landing Gear Mechanisms Based on Characterization Matrix

With the advancement of aerospace technology, the development cycles of unmanned aerial vehicle have become increasingly shorter, and the performance requirements have become higher. The space to store the landing gear has become more constrained, necessitating the design of more complex landing gear mechanisms and posing greater design challenges. Traditional design methods rely on engineers’ design experience and iterative processes based on CAD technology. This approach is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and only yields feasible solutions rather than optimal ones. Moreover, it lacks guidance in design and hampers innovative mechanism design. To address this issue, this paper innovatively establishes a rapid and universal method for mechanism design and optimization. Firstly, a comprehensive synthesis of mechanisms with different numbers of components is conducted, and a mechanism characterization method is proposed to facilitate innovative mechanism configuration design using characterization matrices. Next, the principles of multibody systems are employed to realize generalized kinematics simulation of complex mechanisms. Finally, particle swarm optimization algorithm is applied to optimize the mechanism parameters. Taking into account the constraints of a certain aircraft's compartment and the design requirements for the landing gear retraction position, this method is utilized to design a retraction mechanism that meets the specified requirements, demonstrating the superiority of this approach and providing a new perspective for landing gear mechanism design.