Light spot position control apparatus and light spot position control method

1. A light spot position control apparatus comprising:

a first light source;

a second light source;

a beam splitter that splits a light beam emitted from the second light source into m light beams;

an optical system that allows a first light beam emitted from the first light source and the m light beams generated by the beam splitter to irradiate a disk-shaped recording medium, where grooves and lands are alternately formed with an equal width in a radial direction thereof so that the grooves are formed in a spiral shape or a concentric shape, through a common objective lens, wherein the optical system allows the m light beams to irradiate the disk-shaped recording medium so that an interval of irradiating spots of the m light beams irradiating the disk-shaped recording medium in the radial direction is 1/m of a pitch of tracks formed on the disk-shaped recording medium according to the formation of the grooves;

a tracking control mechanism that is configured to perform tracking control on the light beam irradiated through the objective lens by changing a relative positional relationship between the optical axis of the light beam irradiated through the objective leans and the disk-shaped recording medium in the radial direction;

a light receiving unit that individually receives the m light beams irradiated through the objective lens from disk-shaped recording medium;

an error signal generation unit that generates error signals representing radial position errors of the spot positions of the m light beams with respect to the tracks formed on the disk-shaped recording medium based on received signals obtained by the light receiving unit;

an error signal selector that selects at least one error signal among the error signals generated by the error signal generation unit; and

a servo controller that controls the tracking control mechanism to perform the tracking servo on the light beam irradiated through the objective lens based on the error signal selected by the error signal selector.

2. The light spot position control apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising an inverted signal generation unit that generates inverted signals of the error signals generated by the error signal generation unit,

wherein the error signal selector selects one error signal among the error signals generated by the error signal generation unit and the inverted signal generation unit.

3. The light spot position control apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising an offset allocating unit that allocates an offset to a tracking servo loop based on information of a designated correction amount.

4. The light spot position control apparatus according to claim 1 ,

wherein, in the disk-shaped recording medium, a position separated by a predetermined interval in a circumferential direction in any one of the groove or the land is set to a pit formable position, and address information recording is performed according to a pattern of pit existence at the pit formable position,

wherein the light spot position control apparatus further comprises:

a pit-existence-reflecting signal generation unit that generates a pit-existence-reflecting signal, which reflects the pit existence based on the received signals obtained by the light receiving unit; and

an address detection unit that performs address information detection by detecting a pattern of the pit existence at pit formable positions based on the pit-existence-reflecting signal.

5. The light spot position control apparatus according to claim 4 ,

wherein the pit-existence-reflecting signal generation unit generates the pit-existence-reflecting signal, which reflects the pit existence to the spot positions of the main light beam, the first light beam, and the second light beam from the received signals obtained by the light receiving unit, and

wherein the address detection unit performs the address information detection based on one pit-existence-reflecting signal selected among the pit-existence-reflecting signals generated by the pit-existence-reflecting signal generation unit according to the error signal selected b the error signal selector.

6. A light spot position control method in a light spot position control apparatus which includes:

a first light source;

a second light source;

a beam splitter that splits a light beam emitted from the second light source into m light beams;

an optical system that allows a first light beam emitted from the first light source and the m light beams generated by the beam splitter to irradiate a disk-shaped recording medium, where grooves and lands are alternately formed with an equal width in a radial direction thereof so that the grooves are formed in a spiral shape or a concentric shape, through a common objective lens, wherein the optical system allows the m light beams to irradiate the disk-shaped recording medium so that an interval of irradiating spots of the m light beams irradiating the disk-shaped recording medium in the radial direction is 1/m of a pitch of tracks formed on the disk-shaped recording medium according to the formation of the grooves; and

a tracking control mechanism that is configured to perform tracking control on the light beam irradiated through the objective lens by changing a relative positional relationship between the optical axis of the light beam irradiated through the objective lens and the disk-shaped recording medium in the radial direction, the light spot position control method comprising the steps of:

individually receiving the m light beams irradiated through the objective leans from the disk-shaped recording medium;

generating error signals representing radial position errors of the spot positions of the m light beams with respect to the tracks formed on the disk-shaped recording medium based on received signals obtained by the receiving;

selecting at least one error signal among the error signals generated by the generating error signals; and

controlling the tracking control mechanism to perform the tracking servo on the light beam irradiated through the objective lens based on the error signal selected by the selecting the error signal.