US Patent 7177246 Optical disk drive focusing apparatus using sum signal

A system provides a signal to an actuator within an optical pickup unit of an optical disk drive. In one implementation, SUM signal data (an output from the quad sensors typically present in the optical pickup unit) is recorded within a SUM table. An error term generator processes the SUM signal data from the SUM table to produce an error term. An actuator control signal generator generates a signal to control movement of the actuator, wherein the signal is a function of a prior actuator position, the error term and an adaptation coefficient, wherein the adaptation coefficient impacts a rate at which the error term is allowed to modify the prior actuator position.