Design of swing arm actuator for small and slim optical disc drives

Recent advancements in mobile devices have fueled a requirement for information storage systems with characteristics such as subminiature size, low cost, and minimum power consumption. Small optical disk drives could provide a good solution, because their storage media is cheaper than those of hard disk drives or flash memories. In this paper, we proposed the miniaturized swing arm type actuator that had a new focusing mechanism for small and slim optical disk drives (ODD). Initial model was designed by EM and structural analyses. Based on results of DOE, optimization procedures of EM circuits were performed with design variables using variable metric method (VMM). And, structural parts were designed to maintain the high sensitivity of the actuator. Finally, the swing arm type actuator for small and slim ODDs was suggested and its dynamic characteristics were checked.