The Effects of the Anisotropy of the Suspension on the Performance of the Ball-Type Automatic Balancer Abstract Automatic balancers are designed to reduce the dynamic imbalance of rotating systems and reduce the associated rotational vibrations. The ball-type automatic balancer is one of the most popular automatic balancers used in optical-disk industry and has been analyzed by many researchers. However, previous studies on ball-type automatic balancers are mostly concentrated on systems with isotropic suspension. Little attention has been given to the system with anisotropic suspension. This paper aims to study the effects of the anisotropy of the suspension on the performance of ball-type automatic balancers. A theoretical model of an optical disk drive packed with a two-ball automatic balancer is constructed first. The governing equations of the theoretical model are derived using Lagrange’s equations. The equilibrium positions and their existence conditions are determined. The steady-state behavior is investigated by numerical integration and the associated bifurcation diagram is constructed. Finally, the Floquet theory is used to determine the stability of the equilibrium position.