Patent Document ID: 7839599
Application ID: 12400420
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for providing information to a track-following servomechanism from parallel channels of a timing-based servo module in a linear tape drive, comprising: receiving a first digital servo signal read from a data tape by a first servo element associated with a first synchronous servo channel; generating a first unweighted lateral position estimate from the first digital servo signal; generating a first lateral position estimate variance from the first digital servo signal; receiving a second digital servo signal read from the data tape by a second servo element associated with a second synchronous servo channel; generating a second unweighted lateral position estimate from the second digital servo signal; generating a second lateral position estimate variance from the second digital servo signal; dividing the first lateral position estimate variance by the sum of the first and second lateral position estimate variances to generate a first weight signal; dividing the second lateral position estimate variance by the sum of the first and second lateral position estimate variances to generate a second weight signal; providing a first offset term and a second offset term using first and second measures of reliability of the respective first and second synchronous channels and the first and second unweighted lateral position estimates from the first and second synchronous servo channels; adding the first unweighted lateral position estimate and the first offset term to generate a first sum; adding the second unweighted lateral position estimate and the second offset term to generate a second sum; multiplying the first sum and the first weight signal to generate a first offset weighted lateral position estimate; multiplying the second sum and the second weight signal to generate a second offset weighted lateral position estimate; adding the first and second offset weighted lateral position estimates to generate a combined offset weighted servo signal; and transmitting the combined offset weighted lateral position estimate to a track-following servomechanism.