Active magnetic inertia latch for hard disk drives

In this paper, a new hybrid inertia latch is proposed to improve the shock resistance and the loading time for hard disk drives. The new latch mechanism combines the inertia effect and the magnetic force by additional yoke and magnets, reducing the time required for loading the head to media that is the mechanical limitation of the widely used pawl inertia latch. The operating mechanism of the proposed latch is optimally designed using an electromagnetic simulation, and it is verified by experiments using a prototype. The new latch system reduces the time required for loading the head to media up to 8 ms.