Cam motion synthesis using cubic splines

The application of minimum norm principle, similar to the principle of minimum potential energy, is presented for the general synthesis of cam motion. The approach involves the piecewise cubic spline functions for representing the follower displacement. The cubic splines are more convenient and simpler to use compared to general spline functions and also result in smaller peak acceleration and jerk due to the application of the minimum norm principle. A general procedure is presented for any cam-follower system. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by comparing the results given by the present method with those given by other approaches for a disk cam-translating follower.