Magnetic heads loading in disk drive assembly using rectangular robot with computer visual feedback

Magnetic disk drive is an infinitely rewritable device that stores and retrieves data. A hard disk drive´s major components are: base casting, disk pack with a spindle motor, actuator, and read/write heads. The sensitivity of the parts manual handling and electrostatic interference as well as various kinds of contamination present us with a challenging environment with direct impact to the assembly line yield and quality measurements. In this paper, we present one of the most challenging assembly tasks on a disk drive manufacturing line. That is the loading of the read/write heads on the magnetic disks. The methodology discussed here is based on using blade like fingers manipulated by a rectangular robot and a stepper positioner for coarse and fine motion, assisted with computer vision feedback