Advanced Optical Disk Storage Technology

There is a growing need within the Air Force for more and better data storage solutions. Rome Laboratory, the Air Force's Center of Excellence for C3I technology, has sponsored the development of a number of operational prototypes to deal with this growing problem. This paper will briefly summarize the various prototype developments with examples of full mil-spec and best commercial practice. These prototypes have successfully operated under severe space, airborne and tactical field environments. From a technical perspective these prototypes have included rewritable optical media ranging from a 5.25-inch diameter format up to the 14-inch diameter disk format. Implementations include an airborne sensor recorder, a deployable optical jukebox and a parallel array of optical disk drives. They include stand-alone peripheral devices to centralized, hierarchical storage management systems for distributed data processing applications. Introduction Command, Control, Communications, Computing, and Intelligence (C4I) is essential to the Air Force and, for that matter, to industry as well. C4I systems must effectively store, retrieve, and manage massive amounts of digital data. Current Air Force systems range from centralized Terabyte and Petabyte storage comprised of large objects (images) to distributed heterogeneous databases that contain many small and large objects (open source databases). Although technologies for storage, processing, and transmission are rapidly advancing to support centralized and distributed database applications, more research is needed to handle massive databases efficiently. Over the years, Rome Laboratory has nurtured a comprehensive program, developing new storage techniques that meet the various demands for data storage and retrieval. This article traces the history of and presents an overview of Rome Laboratory's research in optical disk storage technology. The Evolution of Optical Disk Technology In the mid-1970s and early 1980s optical storage reached the consumer market. Industry giants like RCA and Philips developed and marketed playback devices and large format "laser disks" for home movie viewing. While laser disks never generated a large, broadstream consumer market (VCR is still the dominant technology for home movie viewing), compact disks (CDs) are now the primary means of distributing and listening to highfidelity music. The introduction of laser diode devices made compact disk systems a viable