Arduino playground - MaxSonar

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MaxSonar

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The playground is a publiclyeditable wiki about Arduino. Manuals and Curriculum Installing Arduino on Linux Board Setup and Configuration Development Tools Interfacing With Hardware Output Input User Interface Storage Communication Power supplies General Interfacing with Software User Code Library Snippets and Sketches Libraries Tutorials Suggestions & Bugs Electronics Technique Sources for Electronic Parts Related Hardware and Initiatives Arduino People/Groups & Sites Exhibition Project Ideas Languages PARTICIPATE //Analog pin 1 for reading in the analog voltage from the MaxSonar device. //Feel free to use this code. //Please be respectful by acknowledging the author in the code if you use or modify it. //Author: Bruce Allen //Date: 23/07/09 There are 3 ways to interface the the MaxSonar. 1. Analog. Very simple, but not as accurate as pw in my experience. 2. PW - Pulse Width. I found there was not much information out there but it is easy to do. 3. Serial communication. I will not cover this but someone else is free to contribute :). Please feel free to update the information here if you find different results for different products. This is a writeup on the MaxSonar ultrasonic range finder. I felt there was a lack of information out there on this product so I thought this might help out people who are learning. First of All I used the LV-MaxSonar EZ1 but I imagine the fundamentals will be the same and can be applied to all the MaxSonar products.
with MaxSonar ultrasonic rangefinder

Distance Detection

Analog

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Arduino playground - MaxSonar

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MaxSonar

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//This variable is a constant because the pin will not change throughout execution of this code. const int anPin = 1; //variables needed to store values long anVolt, inches, cm; int sum=0;//Create sum variable so it can be averaged int avgrange=60;//Quantity of values to average (sample size) void setup() {
edit SideBar Serial.begin(9600);

//This opens up a serial connection to shoot the results back to the PC c

} void loop() {
pinMode(anPin, INPUT);

//MaxSonar Analog reads are known to be very sensitive. See the Arduino f

//A simple fix is to average out a sample of n readings to get a more con //This loop gets 60 reads and averages them for(int i = 0; i < avgrange ; i++) { //Used to read in the analog voltage output that is being sent by the //Scale factor is (Vcc/512) per inch. A 5V supply yields ~9.8mV/in anVolt = analogRead(anPin); sum += anVolt; delay(10); } inches = sum/avgrange; cm = inches * 2.54; Serial.print(inches); Serial.print("in, "); Serial.print(cm); Serial.print("cm"); Serial.println(); //reset sample total sum = 0; delay(500);

//Even with averaging I still find it to be less accurate than the pw met

PW

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Arduino playground - MaxSonar

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MaxSonar

I found this to be more accurate than the analog method and just as easy to implement. //Feel free to use this code. //Please be respectful by acknowledging the author in the code if you use or modify it. //Author: Bruce Allen //Date: 23/07/09 //Digital pin 7 for reading in the pulse width from the MaxSonar device. //This variable is a constant because the pin will not change throughout execution of this code. const int pwPin = 7; //variables needed to store values long pulse, inches, cm; void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);

//This opens up a serial connection to shoot the results back to the PC c

} void loop() {
pinMode(pwPin, INPUT); //Used to read in the pulse that is being sent by the MaxSonar device. //Pulse Width representation with a scale factor of 147 uS per Inch. pulse = pulseIn(pwPin, HIGH); //147uS per inch inches = pulse/147; //change inches to centimetres cm = inches * 2.54; Serial.print(inches); Serial.print("in, "); Serial.print(cm); Serial.print("cm"); Serial.println(); delay(500);

PW with mode filter Based on the above examples and the median filter provided below, I made a mode filter for too be used with the sonar. I used this in conjunction with pulse width, but I'm sure it would work with the analog readings just

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Arduino playground - MaxSonar

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MaxSonar

aswell. /* This script is designed to take several readings from the maxbotix sonar and generate a mode/median. Author: Jason Lessels Date created: 2011/June/06 Lisence: GPL (=>2) This work has been compileed using many sources mainly posts/wiki posts from; Allen, Bruce (2009/July/23) and Gentles, Bill (2010/Nov/12) */ //Set the pin to recieve the signal. const int pwPin = 7; //variables needed to store values int arraysize = 9; //quantity of values to find the median (sample size). Needs to be an odd number //declare an array to store the samples. not necessary to zero the array values here, it just makes the code clearer int rangevalue[] = { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0}; long pulse; int modE; void setup() {
//Open up a serial connection Serial.begin(9600); //Wait for the serial connection delay(500);

} //Main loop where the action takes place void loop() {

pinMode(pwPin, INPUT); for(int i = 0; i < arraysize; i++) { pulse = pulseIn(pwPin, HIGH); rangevalue[i] = pulse/58; delay(10); } Serial.print("Unsorted: "); printArray(rangevalue,arraysize); isort(rangevalue,arraysize); Serial.print("Sorted: "); printArray(rangevalue,arraysize); modE = mode(rangevalue,arraysize); Serial.print("The mode/median is: ");

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Arduino playground - MaxSonar

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MaxSonar

Serial.print(modE); Serial.println(); delay(1000);

} /*-----------Functions------------*/ //Function to print the arrays. void printArray(int *a, int n) {

for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) { Serial.print(a[i], DEC); Serial.print(' '); } Serial.println();

} //Sorting function // sort function (Author: Bill Gentles, Nov. 12, 2010) void isort(int *a, int n){ // *a is an array pointer function
for (int i = 1; i < n; ++i) { int j = a[i]; int k; for (k = i - 1; (k >= 0) && (j < a[k]); k--) { a[k + 1] = a[k]; } a[k + 1] = j; }

} //Mode function, returning the mode or median. int mode(int *x,int n){
int i = 0; int count = 0; int maxCount = 0; int mode = 0; int bimodal; int prevCount = 0; while(i<(n-1)){ prevCount=count; count=0; while(x[i]==x[i+1]){ count++; i++; }

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Arduino playground - MaxSonar

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/MaxSonar

if(count>prevCount&count>maxCount){ mode=x[i]; maxCount=count; bimodal=0; } if(count==0){ i++; } if(count==maxCount){//If the dataset has 2 or more modes. bimodal=1; } if(mode==0||bimodal==1){//Return the median if there is no mode. mode=x[(n/2)]; } return mode; }

Notice
Please check this page before using LV-MaxSonar http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1288290319 You can find a very userful post by Scott from MaxBotix Inc. Take care with: AVERAGE filter the different resolution between analogRead() (4.8 mv / unit) and LV-MaxSonar (9.8 mv / inch) enjoy! karduino:D

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