Design of a dual moving-magnet motor for a hard disk drive actuator

This paper presents the design and the measured performance of a moving-magnet motor intended to drive a high bandwidth actuator assembly. The motor includes two magnets which are arranged to provide mainly torque rather than force. As a reference point, measurements are also made on a conventional moving coil actuator from a commercial 3.5" hard disk drive. The dual moving-magnet actuator is found to have better electromechanical characteristics and to be more power effective than the reference actuator.