Patent ID: 7009807

Claim:
For use in a disk drive system including a read/write head, an actuator assembly including a voice coil motor (VCM) that is used to control movement of the read/write head, and a VCM driver that drives the VCM, wherein the VCM has an associated back electromagnetic field (BEMF) constant, a method for controlling the deceleration phase of a seek operation that is used to move the read/write head to a desired velocity and a desired position in phase space, the method comprising: (a) obtaining a present velocity (v i ) and a present position (x i ) of the read/write head; (b) selecting a deceleration profile, based on the present velocity (v i ), the present position (x i ) and the BEMF constant, wherein the deceleration profile defines a path in phase space from the present velocity and the present position to the desired velocity and the desired position; and (c) supplying a control signal to the VCM driver in an attempt to have the read/write head follow the selected deceleration profile.