Kern, Thorsten AlexanderThorsten AlexanderKernSadeghi Aval Shahr, MohammadMohammadSadeghi Aval ShahrTortorici, OrnellaOrnellaTortoriciBecker, MaximilianMaximilianBeckerLüer, JulianaJulianaLüerElnwegy, AliAliElnwegy2026-09-212026-09-212026-06-20International Conference and Exhibition on New Actuator Systems and Applications, Actuator 2026https://hdl.handle.net/11420/64963Vibrotactile actuators are used in touchscreens to create tactile feedback and defined crispy surface dynamics. Being mounted on such plastic structures the resulting surface dynamics can differ substantially from what idle actuator specifications predict. This paper identifies the root cause as a coupled resonance interaction between the actuator’s internal spring-mass-damper-system and the structural modes of the systems, and demonstrates that this interaction is very predictable from two standard measurements performed on the actuator alone. As a representative setting five rectangular polycarbonate plates of varying thickness are studied under three conditions: bare plate, bare plate with mounted actuator as a bare mass, and actuator with free moving mass. Laser Doppler vibrometer measurements show that when the plate’s natural frequency approaches the actuator’s internal resonance, the free actuator acts as a dynamic vibration absorber (DVA), splitting the structural resonance and introducing a pronounced anti-resonance. A Rayleigh-Ritz plate model coupled to a lumped-parameter actuator model parameterised exclusively by idle and blocked test measurements predicts all three response conditions without any fitting to plate data. The results establish internal mechanical impedance as the missing design parameter in vibrotactile system integration, and motivate a standardised two-test characterisation methodology applicable across many actuator types.envibrotactile actuatorsdynamic vibration absorbercoupled resonancemechanical impedancelumped-parameter modelstructural dynamicshaptic system designTechnology::620: EngineeringConference Paperhttps://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11689781