Abstract:

The use of transducers to excite physical modelling synthesisers with real-world audio signals is a well established practice within the digital musical instrument design community, yet it is normally presented as a unidirectional process – energy is transferred into the system from human to instrument. In this paper, a novel approach to tactile interaction with physical modelling synthesis is presented, through the use of a self-sensing vibrotactile transducer. This enables simultaneous collocated sensing and haptic actuation with a single moving coil transducer. A current drive amplifier is used for haptic actuation, using signals derived from the physical modelling synthesiser. The varying impedance of the transducer (due to changes in the mechanical damping) enables the sensing of force applied upon the device whilst also acting as a pickup to excite the physical model, all with simultaneous haptic actuation. A digital filter equivalent of the transducer’s impedance is used to prevent feedback in the system, allowing simultaneous excitation and haptic actuation without self-oscillation.

Conference Presentation Video:

Recommended citation: Davison, Matthew, Andrew McPherson, Craig Webb, and Michele Ducceschi. ‘A Self-Sensing Haptic Actuator for Tactile Interaction with Physical Modelling Synthesis’. Paper presented at NIME 2024. Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, September 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13904955. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13904955