An Iterative TMR Mitigation Method Based on Readback Signal for Bit-Patterned Media Recording

Off-track condition or track misregistration (TMR) is one of the most significant problems in the extremely high-density bit-patterned media recording (BPMR) system, since a track pitch becomes narrower. Typically, the TMR can be detected and handled by a servo system; however, it requires some special data to be inserted in the tracks so as to estimate the amount of head offset. Nonetheless, this paper proposes an iterative TMR mitigation method for BPMR systems based on the readback signals. First, we design several pairs of the 2-D asymmetric target and its corresponding 2-D equalizer that match the BPMR channel for each TMR level. Then, we exploit the three adjacent data tracks obtained from the low-density parity-check decoders to estimate the TMR level. Last, a pair of the 2-D asymmetric target and its corresponding 2-D equalizer that is best fit to the estimated TMR level will be used to alleviate the TMR effect in the readback signal for the next global iteration. Simulation results indicate that the proposed system can effectively estimate the TMR level and performs better than the conventional system without a TMR mitigation method, especially when the TMR level is high and/or the position jitter is large.