Optimal generation of cam curves with B-spline

This paper proposes an approach to optimal generation of cam curves. In the approach, cam curve is described with a uniform B-spline curve and then the values of B-spline control points are optimized with the Complex Method according to the design purpose. The algorithm is simple and the programming is easy since it only needs to compute the performance index value but require no gradient of the index in optimization calculation. Several examples of cam curve generation are also shown together with a performance comparison between the obtained curves and those applied in engineering practice, in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the approach.