Abstract
Disk radial runout creates a periodic relative motion between the laser beam spot and tracks formed on an optical disk. While only focus control is activated, the periodic relative motion yields sinusoid-like waves in the tracking error signal, where one cycle of the sinusoid-like waves corresponds to one track. The frequency of the sinusoid-like waves varies depending on the disk rotational speed and the amount of the disk radial runout. If the frequency of the tracking error signal in the off-track state is too high due to large radial runout of the disk, it is not a simple matter to begin track-following control stably. It might take a long time to reach a steady state or tracking control might fail to reach a stable steady state in the worst case. This article proposes a simple method for reducing the relative motion caused by the disk radial runout in the off-track state. The relative motion in the off-track state is effectively reduced by a drive input obtained through measurements of the tracking error signal and simple calculations based on the measurements, which helps reduce the transient response time of the track-following control. The validity of the proposed method is verified through an experiment using an optical disk drive.
