Abstract
This paper presents the recent status of industry-university cooperative research activities in Japan on the mechatronics of information storage and input/output equipment. There are three research committees for promoting information exchange on technical problems and research topics of head-disk interface in hard disk drives (HDD), flexible media transport and image printing processes which are supported by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering (JSME), the Japanese Society of Tribologists (JAST) and the Japan Society of Precision Engineering (JSPE). For hard disk drive technology, the Storage Research Consortium (SRC) is supporting more than 40 research groups in various different universities to perform basic research for future HDD technology. The past and present statuses of these activities are introduced, particularly focusing on HDD and flexible media transport mechanisms.
