Evolutionary design and implementation of a hard disk drive servo control system

Abstract

The ever increasing demand for higher storage capacity and smaller magnetic hard disk drives have driven the need of developing a high performance head positioning servo control system. To meet the challenge, this paper presents the design and real-time implementation of a robust two-degree-of-freedom servo system for physical 3.5-in. hard disk drive with single voice-coil-motor actuator using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm toolbox. Besides the simplicity in controller structure, such an evolutionary servo control system is capable of meeting various performance specifications of hard disk drives in both the time and frequency domains. It is shown that the servo system optimally moves the magnetic head onto the desired track with minimal control effort, and keeps it on the track robustly against plant uncertainties or runout disturbances. Validation results of the evolutionary servo control system are compared with classical PID and RPT controllers, which show excellent closed-loop response and robustness in the face of practical perturbations in HDD.

A study on metamodeling techniques, ensembles, and multi-surrogates in evolutionary computation

“…Evolutionary Algorithm(EA), a stochastic computational model inspired by the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, has been used as the major optimization framework in various complex real-world optimization problems, such as in the designs of aerodynamic shape [1], transonic civil transport aircraft wing [2], stator blade [3], hard disk drive servo control [4], and biomedical applications [5]. However, as a population-based algorithm, thousands of calls to the analysis codes are often required to locate a near optimal solution in most conventional EA.…”

Differential Search Algorithm Based Design of Fractional Order PID Controller for Hard Disk Drive Read/Write System

“…Hirata et al [5] proposed a new design method for head position controller using multi-rate sampled-data ∞ H control theory. Tan et al [1] applied the concept of multi-objective optimization and developed two-degree-freedom-of controller.…”

“…In most of the computers, magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs) are primary permanent storage devices [1]. Typically in HDDs, data is written on a rotating disk coated with a thin magnetic layer or recording medium.…”

The Complete Gradient Clustering Algorithm: properties in practical applications

“…This method was positively verified in numerous practical problems. Presented below are comparative results obtained for the control system of a hard-drive servo motor, presented in the paper [22] …”