Title: Machine vision assistance for flex cable-actuator comb manufacturing in hard disk drives

Authors: Jen-Yuan (James) Chang, Jr-Yi Shen

Addresses: School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand. ' Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, 5600 Cottle Road, San Jose, CA 95193, USA

Abstract: The work presented in this paper suggests an automated manufacturing method for assembling of flexible printed circuit cable assembly onto actuator comb-like structure in high capacity hard disk drives. Apart from traditional alignment methods, robotic vision-guided method and assembling system are developed and discussed in this paper. Its capabilities of reaching micro-scale position and alignment accuracy are demonstrated in modern disk drive manufacturing lines along with proven significant lower drive-to-drive flex cable dynamic performance variation.

Keywords: machine vision; HDD; track mis-registration; TMR; flex cable assembly; FCA; vibration; manufacturing; robotics; mechatronics; hard disk drives; robot vision; disk drive manufacturing; flexible PCA; printed circuit assembly; robotic assembly; robot positioning; alignment accuracy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2010.030219

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2010 Vol.8 No.1/2/3/4, pp.395 - 408

Published online: 11 Dec 2009 *

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