The Technique used here is just useful on small scale systems where a small distance is to be found. To implement it on a large scale, some modifications are surely needed. All the challenges that were faced while carrying out this project are discussed below.

How to Use Arduino and Ultrasonic Sensor To Measure Distance?

As we know the summary behind the project, let us move ahead and gather further information to start the project.

Step 1: Gathering The Components (Hardware)

If you want to avoid any inconvenience in the middle of any project, the best approach is to make a complete list of all the components that we are going to use. The second step, before starting to make the circuit, is to go through a brief study of all these components. A list of all the components that we need in this project is given below.

Step 2: Gathering The Components (Software)

After downloading the Proteus 8 Professional, design the circuit on it. I have included software simulations here so that it may be convenient for beginners to design the circuit and make appropriate connections on the hardware.

Step 3: Working of The HCR-05

As we now know the main abstract of our project, let us move ahead and go through a brief study of the working of HCR-05. You can understand the main working of this sensor by the following diagram. This sensor has two pins, trigger pin, and eco pin that are both used to measure the distance between two particular points. The process is initiated by sending an ultrasonic wave from the sensor. This task is done by triggering the trig pin for 10us. An 8 sonic burst of ultrasonic waves is sent from the transmitter as soon as this task is done. this wave will travel in the air and as soon as it strikes an object in its way, it will strike back and received by the receiver built in the sensor. When the ultrasonic wave will be received by the receiver after reflecting the sensor, it will put the eco pin to a high state. This pin will remain in the high state for the duration of time that will be exactly equal to the time taken by the ultrasonic wave to travel from the transmitter and back to the receiver of the sensor. To make your ultrasonic sensor transmitter only, just make the trig pin as your output pin and send a high pulse to this pin for 10us. An ultrasonic burst will be initiated as soon as this is done. So, whenever the wave is to be transmitted, just the trigger pin of the ultrasonic sensor is to be controlled. There is no way to make the ultrasonic sensor as a receiver only because the rise of the ECO pin can not be controlled by the microcontroller because it is related to the trig pin of the sensor. But there is one thing that we can do is, we can cover the transmitter of this ultrasonic sensor with duct tape s that no UV wave gets out. Then the ECO pin of this transmitter will not be affected by the transmitter.

Step 4: Working of The Circuit

Now, as we have made both the sensors to work separately as a transmitter and a receiver, there is a big problem that is faced here. The receiver will not know the time taken by the ultrasonic wave to travel from the transmitter to the receiver because it does not know exactly when this wave was transmitted. To solve this problem, what we have to do is to have to send a HIGH signal to the ECO of the receiver as soon as the ultrasonic wave is transmitted bu the transmitter sensor. Or in simple words, we can say that the ECO of the receiver and the trigger of the transmitter should be sent to HIGH at the same time. So, to achieve this, we will somehow make the trigger of the receiver go high as soon as the trigger of the transmitter goes high. This trigger of the receiver will stay high until the ECO pin goes LOW. When an ultrasonic signal will be received by the ECO pin of the receiver, it will go LOW. This will mean that the trigger of the transmitter sensor just got a HIGH signal. Now, as soon as the ECO goes low, we will wait for the known delay and put the receiver’s trigger HIGH. By doing so, the triggers of both the sensors will be synced and the distance will be calculated by knowing the time delay of the wave travel.

Step 5: Assembling The Components

Even though we are using only the transmitter of one ultrasonic sensor and the receiver of the other, but it is mandatory to connect all of the four pins of the ultrasonic sensor to the Arduino. To connect the circuit, follow the steps given below: The circuit diagram of this project looks like:

Step 6: Getting Started With Arduino

If you are not already familiar with the Arduino IDE, don’t worry because a step by step procedure to set-up and use Arduino IDE with a microcontroller board is explained below. To download the code, click here.

Step 7: Understanding The Code

The code used in this project is very simple and quite well commented. There are two files of codes in the attached folder. Code for the transmitter and a code for the receiver side both are given separately. We will upload these codes in both of the respective Arduino boards. Although it is self-explanatory, it is briefly described below.

Code For Transmitter Side

  1. At the start, pins of the Arduino board are initialized that will be connected to the Ultrasonic Sensor. Then the variables are declared which will be used to store values for the calculation of time and distance during the run time of the code.
  2. void setup() is a function that runs only one time in the start when the board s powered on or the enable button is pressed. Here both the pins of Arduino are declared to be used as INPUT and OUTPUT. Baudrate is set in this function. Baud rate is the speed in bits per second by which the microcontroller communicates with the ultrasonic sensor.
  3. void loop() is a function that runs again and again in a loop. Here we have coded the microcontroller so that it sends a HIGH signal to the Trigger pin of the ultrasonic sensor, wits for 20 microseconds and send a LOW signal to it.

Code For Receiver Side

  1. At the start, pins of the Arduino board are initialized that will be connected to the Ultrasonic Sensor. Then the variables are declared which will be used to store values for the calculation of time and distance during the run time of the code.
  2. void setup() is a function that runs only one time in the start when the board s powered on or the enable button is pressed. Here both the pins of Arduino are declared to be used as INPUT and OUTPUT. Baudrate is set in this function. Baud rate is the speed in bits per second by which the microcontroller communicates with the ultrasonic sensor.
  3. void Trigger_US() is a function that is will be called for Fake Triggering of the trig pin of the second ultrasonic sensor. We will sync the trigger time of the trig pin of both the sensors.
  4. void Calc() is a function that is used to calculate the time taken by the ultrasonic signal to travel from the first sensor to the second sensor.
  5. Here in the void loop() function, we are calculating the distance by using the time taken by the ultrasonic signal to travel from the first sensor to the second sensor.

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