PROJECT TITLE :

High-Performance Servo Channel for Nanometer Head Positioning and Longitudinal Position Symbol Detection in Tape Systems

ABSTRACT:

In a tape system, the core of the reel-to-reel and track-following servomechanisms is the servo channel, which processes the servo signal generated by a servo reader reading a timing-based servo pattern. The servo channel estimates essential servo parameters, together with tape velocity, head lateral position, and longitudinal tape position. The achievable precision of the varied estimates determines how densely knowledge can be placed on tape. During this paper, the design and the design of a high-performance synchronous servo channel (SSC) are presented. The channel performance is evaluated by means of analytical bounds on the estimation error, simulations, and experimental results, that demonstrate that the proposed servo channel is instrumental to realize head positioning with nanometer accuracy and reliable detection of longitudinal position information in tape systems. Ways for the estimation of servo parameters with enhanced precision and of dynamic tape-to-head skew by dual SSCs operating on adjacent servo bands also are presented and their performance evaluated.