Disc drive stiction/friction characterization utilizing piezoelectric microactuators
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsRaymond L. Willis, Travis D. Fox
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A disc drive includes a base and a disc rotatably attached to the base. The disc drive also includes an actuator assembly rotatably attached to the base and a device for moving the actuator assembly. The actuator assembly includes an arm carrying a transducer head in a transducing relationship with respect to the disc. The disc drive further includes a servo circuitry and a controller for controlling movement of the actuator assembly during a track follow and a track seek. Piezoelectric transducers are attached to the actuator assembly for non-intrusive measurement of stiction and friction forces developed between the transducer head and the disc during a disc drive spin-up.
Claims11
A method of measuring stiction and friction forces developed between a transducer head and a disc during a spin-up, comprising steps of:
- (a) attaching a piezoelectric transducer on to an actuator assembly supporting the head;
- (b) coupling an external processor to the piezoelectric transducer;
- (c) starting the disc to spin-up;
- (d) sensing signals from the piezoelectric transducer during the disc spin-up;
- and
- (e) analyzing the signals for the stiction and friction forces developed between the transducer head and the disc during the spin-up, the analyzing step comprising:
- (e)(i) conditioning the signals coming from the piezoelectric transducer by filtering and amplifying signals of interest from the sensed signals coming from the piezoelectric transducer;
- (e)(ii) converting the conditioned signals to digital signals;
- and
- (e)(iii) analyzing the digitized signals for stiction and friction forces.
A data storage device, comprising:
- a base;
- a transducer;
- a disc rotatably attached to the base;
- an arm for carrying the transducer in transducing relation with respect to the disc;
- a piezoelectric transducer, attached to the arm for measuring the stiction and friction forces developed during a spin-up;
- and
- an external processor coupled to the piezoelectric transducer for sensing and analyzing signals coming from the piezoelectric transducer for stiction and friction forces developed during the spin-up, the processor comprising:
- an analog signal conditioning circuit to condition the sensed signals by filtering and amplifying signals of interest from the sensed signals coming from the piezoelectric transducer;
- an analog-to-digital converter, coupled to the analog signal conditioning circuit, converting the conditioned sensed signals to digital signals;
- and
- an analyzer, coupled to the analog-to-digital converter, analyzing the digitized signals for stiction and friction forces developed during the spin-up.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.