Hard Disk Drive Servo Systems

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. Hard disk drive systems are ubiquitous in today's computer systems and the technology is still evolving. There is a review of hard disk drive technology and construction in the early pages of this monograph that looks at the characteristics of the disks and there it can be read that: 'bit density... continues to increase at an amazing rate', 'spindle speed... the move to faster and faster spindle speeds continue', 'form factors... the trend...is downward... to smaller and smaller drives', 'performance... factors are improving', 'redundant arrays of inexpensive disks... becoming increasingly common, and is now seen in consumer desktop machines', 'reliability... is improving slowly... it is very hard to improve the reliability of a product when it is changing rapidly' and finally 'interfaces... continue to create new and improved standards... to match the increase in performance of the hard disks themselves'.

Associate Professor Chen's research interests are in linear systems, robust control theory and control applications. He has published 7 monographs. He has served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and Asian Journal of Control. Currently, he is serving as an Associate Editor of Systems and Control Letters, and Control and Intelligent Systems. Before returning to Singapore, Professor Chen worked in the US (New York and Washington State Universites) and in Australia. He lectures on several courses, both undergraduate and graduate.

Professor Lee's research interests are in intelligent systems and control, adaptive control and control applications. He has published hundreds of technical papers and several monographs. He is an Associate Editor of several international journals including Automatica, Control Engineering Practice, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Men and Cybernetics and International Journal of Systems Science. He is also serving as an Honorary Editor of IEE Proceedings - Control Theory and Applications, and a Regional Editor (Asia-Pacific) of Mechatronics.

Doctor Peng's research interests incclude control theory and control applications to hard disk drive servo systems and flight control systems.

Doctor Venkataramanan's current research focus is on topics related to hard disk drive servo systems, hyperflexible object manipulation and biological control.