Time delay and sampling rate effect on dual-stage servo control performance

Dual-stage servo control loops are modeled for hard disk drives (HDDs) with the consideration of time delay which is due to the time taken for position error signal measurement and controller computing. The time delays are involved in controller design and the closed servo control loop is investigated to show the effects of the time delay on servo control performance. The studied actuation system is a PZT milliactuator based dual-stage servo system. The delay time within and over the sampling interval is separately considered for 62.5 kHz sampling rate. To show the effect of sampling rate on servo control performance, a control system designed with 40 kHz sampling rate is also studied. As a result, significant improvement of servo performance is attained with this increased sampling rate and a reasonable time delay for the dual-stage actuation system.