11. Input devices

This week I worked on defining my final project idea and started to getting used to the documentation process.

Group assignment

Link for the group assignment.

Ultrasonic Sensor HC-SR04

What is Ultrasonic sensor?

An ultrasonic sensor is an electronic device that measures the distance of a target object by emitting ultrasonic sound waves, and converts the reflected sound into an electrical signal. Ultrasonic waves travel faster than the speed of audible sound. It is used primarily as proximity sensors. They can be found in automobile self-parking technology and anti-collision safety systems. Ultrasonic sensors are also used in robotic obstacle detection systems, as well as manufacturing technology.

How it works ?

Ultrasonic sensors have two main components: the transmitter (which emits the sound using piezoelectric crystals) and the receiver (which encounters the sound after it has travelled to and from the target).

It emits an ultrasound at 40 000 Hz which travels through the air and if there is an object or obstacle on its path It will bounce back to the module. Considering the travel time and the speed of the sound you can calculate the distance.

In order to calculate the distance between the sensor and the object, the sensor measures the time it takes between the emission of the sound by the transmitter to its contact with the receiver. The formula for this calculation is D = ½ T x C (where D is the distance, T is the time, and C is the speed of sound ~ 343 meters/second)

to generate the ultrasound you need to set the Trig on a High State for 10 µs. That will send out an 8 cycle sonic burst which will travel at the speed sound and it will be received in the Echo pin. The Echo pin will output the time in microseconds the sound wave traveled.

Code & Wiring

The HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Module has 4 pins, Ground, VCC, Trig and Echo. The Ground and the VCC pins of the module needs to be connected to the Ground and the 5 volts pins on the Arduino Board respectively and the trig and echo pins to any Digital I/O pin on the Arduino Board.

Code:

//Define pin numbers 
const int trigPin = 9 ;
const int echoPin = 8;

long duration ;
int distance ;
void setup() {
pinMode(trigPin,OUTPUT); // set the trig as an output 
pinMode(echoPin,INPUT);  // set the echo as an input 
Serial.begin(9600); //Start the serial communication 
}

void loop() {
// Clears the trigPin
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(2);
// Sets the trigPin on HIGH state for 10 micro seconds
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(10);
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
// Reads the echoPin, returns the sound wave travel time in microseconds
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
// Calculating the distance
distance= duration*0.034/2;
// Prints the distance on the Serial Monitor
Serial.print("Distance: ");
Serial.println(distance);
}

My Board

For this week I decided to make a samll board to test the ultrasonic sensor. So i designed the board baser on ATTINY44 and a I added a carrier for the sensor on the same board and then you can use it as SPI slave on your robot.

Download Files: Board file, Schematic file ; Source Code