Design of a vibrotactile display via a rigid surface

This paper describes the analysis, optimized redesign and evaluation of a high fidelity vibrotactile interface integrated in a rigid surface. The main application of the embodiment described here is vibrotactile display of virtual ground surface material properties for immersive environments, although the design principles are general. The device consists of a light, composite plate mounted on an elastic suspension, with integrated force sensors. It is actuated by a single voice coil motor. The structural dynamics of the device were optimized, within constraints imposed by the requirements of user interaction, and corrected via digital inverse filtering, in order to enable accurate simulation of virtual ground materials. Measurements of the resulting display demonstrate that it is capable of accurately reproducing forces of more than 40 N across a usable frequency band from 50 Hz to 750 Hz.