Last Christmas as part of my stocking fillers I got an HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor.
Like most of my electronic bits it's a cheap generic device from ebay. It's a small sensor that is suppose to do the same thing as the Ping sensor but for less money.
I finally unwrapped it and found a library for Arduino IDE 1.0 at
HERE. There is even some sample code to read the HC-SR04 and display the results on an LCD display.
Wiring is really simple
VCC - 5V
GND - GND
Trig - Trigger Pin you define in the code
Echo - Echo Pin defined in the code
Since I don't have an LCD display (yet) I modified the code to use the Serial Monitor as the output.
Code Below:
#include "Ultrasonic.h"
int TriggerP = 13; // Trigger Pin for Sensor
int EchoP = 12; // Echo Pin for Sensor
Ultrasonic ultrasonic(TriggerP,EchoP);
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
Serial.print("Distance: ");
Serial.print(ultrasonic.Ranging(CM)); // Get Range in Centimetres
Serial.println(" Cm.");
delay(1000);
Serial.println("..."); // Next lines.
}
This worked great up to about 16cm. But beyond that it started to give me some random numbers greater than 4000, so I'd expect not very robust.
I continued my search and found the following
code that doesn't use any library, and this code even does the Serial Monitor as the output so no modification needed.
/*
HC-SR04 Ping distance sensor]
VCC to arduino 5v GND to arduino GND
Echo to Arduino pin 13 Trig to Arduino pin 12
More info at: http://goo.gl/kJ8Gl
*/
#define trigPin 12
#define echoPin 13
void setup() {
Serial.begin (9600);
pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);
}
void loop() {
int duration, distance;
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(1000);
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
distance = (duration/2) / 29.1;
if (distance >= 200 || distance <= 0){
Serial.println("Out of range");
}
else {
Serial.print(distance);
Serial.println(" cm");
}
delay(500);
}
This code performed better, working out to about 24cm.
While doing my research on using the HC-SR04 I did find a post (somewhere...) stating that when powering from USB the 5V line can be a little bit off so this might be part of my problem.
But, using either method I have a sensor that is good up to 15cm which could be good enough for a small autonimous robot as if I'm within 15 cms I will need to look around for another direction.
NOTE: If you are using a version of the Arduino IDE before 1.0 then at the following
LINK you can get the relevant library. It looks like it's the same as the 1.0 library and has similar performance.
The hunt is on to see if there is a way of getting a reading beyond 24cm that is reliable.
Loving the tinkering.
UPDATE:
I combined some of the code from the Library with the direct code and now it reliably(ish) without detailed testing will work to 70cm.
The modified code is below.
/*
HC-SR04 Ping distance sensor]
VCC to arduino 5v GND to arduino GND
Echo to Arduino pin 13 Trig to Arduino pin 12
More info at: http://goo.gl/kJ8Gl
*/
#define trigPin 13
#define echoPin 12
void setup() {
Serial.begin (9600);
pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);
}
void loop() {
long duration, distance;
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); // Added this line
delayMicroseconds(2); // Added this line
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
// delayMicroseconds(1000); - Removed this line
delayMicroseconds(10); // Added this line
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
distance = (duration/2) / 29.1;
if (distance >= 200 || distance <= 0){
Serial.println("Out of range");
}
else {
Serial.print(distance);
Serial.println(" cm");
}
delay(500);
}
Once again, I love this Tinkering.
