Investigates the application of norm-based control design techniques to a compact disc (CD) player mechanism. In this control design problem, the main goal is to keep the time-domain amplitude of a tracking error signal bounded in the presence of disturbances and norm-bounded uncertainties. Since the performance specification is given in the time domain while the robustness specification is typically of a frequency-domain nature, we cast this problem into the multiobjective framework for which design techniques based on linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) have been proposed in the literature. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness of these methods in a real-world control problem through digital implementation of the proposed controllers. In particular, we compare performance and robustness achieved by multivariable generalized H/sub 2//H/spl infin/ controllers with those achieved by a benchmark multivariable H/sub /spl infin// controller. The comparison is made on the basis of experimental results obtained by digital controller implementation on a multiprocessor system.