ELECTRONICS HUB

P R OJ E C T S | T U TO R I A L S | C O U R S E S | K I T S

HOME PROJECTS MINI PROJECTS ARDUINO FREE CIRCUITS TUTORIALS SYMBOLS

DIY COURSES CONTACT US

YOU ARE HERE: HOME / ARDUINO / ARDUINO SERIAL COMMUNICATION

Arduino Serial Communication

NOVEMBER 20, 2016 BY ADMINISTRATOR — LEAVE A COMMENT

In the previous tutorial, we have seen how to write our own sketch for a circuit of our own. We
have also seen some new functions and how to use those functions as per our requirement. In
this tutorial, we will see a new topic called Serial Communication. We will see how to transfer
data between Arduino UNO and a computer.

Before going further in the tutorial, rst we will discuss about what communication is in
general. Communication is nothing but exchange of information between two devices. Here,
the information is nothing but data which can be anything like text documents, images, audio
or video les etc. Data can be sent or received between two systems or devices and it is in the
form of bits i.e. 0’s and 1’s.

There are many types of protocols that are used in transferring data between two devices, but
all these protocols are based on either Parallel Communication or Serial Communication.

Select the Next Set of Arduino Projects You Want to Learn in Electronicshub: Arduino
Projects»

Parallel communication is a method of transferring multiple bits of data simultaneously using

more number of data lines. Some of the common examples of parallel communication are
olden day’s printers and hard disks. Even RAMs in modern computers use parallel
communication as it increases the speed of data transmission by using separate channel for
each bit to be transmitted.

But these high speed data transfers in parallel communication requires more number of wires
and also the distance of communication is very less i.e. they cannot be used for long distance
communication.

Apart from the on board communications like RAM, graphics cards and other PCI connections,
all other devices like printers, hard disks, Ethernet etc. use serial communication. This is
because, unlike parallel communication, serial communication transfers one bit of data at a
time over two to four wires depending on the protocol.

Even though the data transfer speeds in serial communication is very less when compared to
that of parallel communication, this speed is su cient for devices like printer, hard disk, mouse
etc.

The main advantages of serial communication over parallel communication are longer
distance communication, less number of wires for communication, reduction in hardware
complexity etc.

When coming to Arduino, the communication between Arduino UNO (or any other board) and
computer is serial communication.

The main purpose of this serial communication is to transfer the sketch from computer to
Arduino, send information to computer etc.

The most common type of serial communication protocol is UART i.e. Universal Asynchronous
Receiver Transmitter. The UART connection requires a 9 pin DE – 9 Connector. But, most
modern computers and laptops do not include these COM ports. Hence, if we want to connect
our microcontrollers like 8051, AVR or ARM, we need to use an external serial to USB
converter.

But Arduino UNO has an on board serial to USB converter and hence we can directly connect
the Arduino to the computer. Using this USB connection and Arduino IDE, we can send data to
Arduino or receive data from Arduino. This data can be monitored with the help of Serial
Monitor in the Arduino IDE.
Now that we have some idea about serial communication, we write a program for
communication between Arduino and the computer. For this we will modify the button – LED
program we used in the previous tutorial.

In this sketch, whenever the button is pressed, the LED connected to the Arduino is turned on.
In this tutorial, we will perform the same operation with an additional task of transferring the
status of the button to the computer and printing it on the terminal or serial monitor.

In Arduino environment, in order to begin or initiate the serial communication, we need to use
a prede ned function called “Serial.begin”.

Serial.begin is a function that is used to begin the serial communication and also set the data
transfer rate for communication.

The syntax of Serial.begin is Serial.begin (baud rate);

In the syntax, the baud rate indicates how many bits we are going to transfer in one second.
The units of baud rate is bits per second (bps) and the common values of baud rate are 9600
bps, 19200 bps, 115200 bps etc.

The preferred baud rate in most devices is 9600 bps and the default value in Arduino’s serial
terminal is also the same. Hence, in the sketch, we will initialize the serial communication by
writing Serial.begin (9600); in the setup function.

After initializing the serial communication, the next step is to send data to the serial terminal of
the Arduino, which will be displayed on the computer screen. In order to do that, we need to
use another function called “Serial.println”.

Using Serial.println function, we can transmit data from the Arduino to computer that can be
seen on the serial monitor. The syntax of Serial.println function is Serial.println (“Data”);
In place of Data in the Serial.println function, we have to write the actual data that has to be
transmitted. For example, if we want to transfer the data as “Train no: 1234”, then we have to
submit Serial.println (“Train no: 1234”);

Coming back to the tutorial, in the button – LED program, we turn on the LED after checking
for the status of the button in the “if – else” statement. For the purpose of the tutorial, we are
going to do the same thing along with printing the status of the button in the serial monitor.

The modi ed sketch is shown above. In this sketch, we have modi ed the “if – else” statement
to send the necessary data as per the status of the button. If the condition in the “if” statement
is true i.e. if the button is pressed, the LED is turned on and also the status of the button is
transferred to computer as “button pressed”. Similarly, when the condition is false, the LED is
turned o and serial data is transmitted as “button not pressed”.
In the next tutorial, we will continue exploring features of Arduino by utilizing the Analog Input
feature of the Arduino and also the PWM function of Arduino.

FILED UNDER: ARDUINO

Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published. Required elds are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

POST COMMENT
Search this website …
 Arduino Project

Arduino Circuit

Arduino Uno

Serial Communication USB

PROJECTS BY CATEGORY

Arduino Projects (200+)

Electronics Projects (250+)
Mini Project Circuits (160+)
Mini Project Ideas (150+)
ECE Projects (150+)
EEE Projects (150+)
8051 Projects (110+)
Raspberry Pi Projects (101+)
Electrical Project Ideas (100+)
Embedded Projects (100+)
Latest Electronics Ideas (100+)
Microcontroller Mini Projects (100+)
Robotics Projects (100+)
VLSI Projects (100+)
Solar Projects (100+)
IOT Projects (100+)
Communication Projects (70+)
LED Projects (70+)
Power Electronics Projects (60+)
RFID Projects (60+)
Home Automation Projects (50+)
Matlab Projects (50+)
EIE Projects (50+)
Wireless Projects (50+)
LabView Projects (45+)
Zigbee Projects (45+)
GSM Projects (40+)
555 Timer Circuits (40+)
Sensor Projects (40+)
ARM Projects (60+)
DTMF Projects (30+)
PIC Projects (30+)
Electrical Mini Projects (25)
ESP8266 Projects (15)

KITS

Best Drone Kits [12]

3D Printer Kits [12]
Best Robot Vacuum Clears [14]
Best Waveform Generators [12]
 ardushop.ro

GENERAL PROJECTS PROJECTS

Tutorials Electrical Mini projects

Symbols Electronics Microcontroller
Courses Embedded Arduino

Calculator Power Solar

Contact Robotics Free circuits
ARM Home Automation
IOT Seminar Topics

Electronics Questions

TUTORIALS TUTORIALS FOLLOW US

Capacitors Ampli ers Instagram

Resistors IO Devices Youtube
Filters Thyristors Facebook

Diodes DC Circuits Google Plus

Transistors Number System Twitter
Copyright © 2018 Electronicshub.org