Book Image

DIY Microcontroller Projects for Hobbyists

By : Miguel Angel Garcia-Ruiz, Pedro Cesar Santana Mancilla
Book Image

DIY Microcontroller Projects for Hobbyists

By: Miguel Angel Garcia-Ruiz, Pedro Cesar Santana Mancilla

Overview of this book

We live in a world surrounded by electronic devices, and microcontrollers are the brains of these devices. Microcontroller programming is an essential skill in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), and this book helps you to get up to speed with it by working through projects for designing and developing embedded apps with microcontroller boards. DIY Microcontroller Projects for Hobbyists are filled with microcontroller programming C and C++ language constructs. You'll discover how to use the Blue Pill (containing a type of STM32 microcontroller) and Curiosity Nano (containing a type of PIC microcontroller) boards for executing your projects as PIC is a beginner-level board and STM-32 is an ARM Cortex-based board. Later, you'll explore the fundamentals of digital electronics and microcontroller board programming. The book uses examples such as measuring humidity and temperature in an environment to help you gain hands-on project experience. You'll build on your knowledge as you create IoT projects by applying more complex sensors. Finally, you'll find out how to plan for a microcontroller-based project and troubleshoot it. By the end of this book, you'll have developed a firm foundation in electronics and practical PIC and STM32 microcontroller programming and interfacing, adding valuable skills to your professional portfolio.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Connecting an ultrasonic sensor to the microcontroller board

Before moving ahead, we need to learn about the functionality of the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, how to interface it with the STM32 Blue Pill, and how to write a program to measure the distance between the sensor and another object.

This sensor emits an ultrasonic wave. When this wave collides with an object, the wave is reflected and received by the sensor. When the reflected signal is received, the sensor can calculate the time it took to be reflected, and thus the distance of the collision object can be measured.

The sensor can be seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 13.5 – Ultrasonic sensor

Figure 13.5 – Ultrasonic sensor

This sensor board connects to the STM32 Blue Pill microcontroller board with four pins, outlined as follows:

  • Trigger: This pin enables the ultrasonic wave.
  • Echo: This pin receives the reflected wave.
  • VCC: The pin to supply power to the sensor (5V).
  • GND: Ground connection...