C programming for Arduino

603 Pages·2013·15.59 MB·English

by  Julien Bayle

Table of Contents
C Programming for Arduino
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
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Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Let's Plug Things
What is a microcontroller?
Presenting the big Arduino family
About hardware prototyping
Understanding Arduino software architecture
Installing Arduino development environment (IDE)
Installing the IDE
How to launch the environment?
What does the IDE look like?
Installing Arduino drivers
Installing drivers for Arduino Uno R3
Installing drivers for Arduino Duemilanove, Nano, or Diecimilla
What is electricity?
Voltage
Current and power
And what are resistors, capacitors, and so on?
Wiring things and Fritzing
What is Fritzing?
Power supply fundamentals
Hello LED!
What do we want to do exactly?
How can I do that using C code?
Start with a new blank page
Setting up the environment according the board we are using
Let's write the code
Let's upload the code, at last!
Summary
2. First Contact with C
An introduction to programming
Different programming paradigms
Programming style
C and C++?
C is used everywhere
Arduino is programmed with C and C++
The Arduino native library and other libraries
Discovering the Arduino native library
Other libraries included and not directly provided
Some very useful included libraries
Some external libraries
Checking all basic development steps
Using the serial monitor
Baud rate
Serial communication with Arduino
Serial monitoring
Making the Arduino talk to us
Adding serial communication to Blink250ms
Serial functions in more detail
Serial.begin()
Serial.print() and Serial.println()
Digging a bit…
Talking to the board from the computer
Summary
3. C Basics – Making You Stronger
Approaching variables and types of data
What is a variable?
What is a type?
The roll over/wrap concept
Declaring and defining variables
Declaring variables
Defining variables
String
String definition is a construction
Using indexes and search inside String
charAt()
indexOf() and lastIndexOf()
startsWith() and endsWith()
Concatenation, extraction, and replacement
Concatenation
Concat()
Using the + operator on strings
Extract and replace
substring() is the extractor
Splitting a string using a separator
Replacement
Other string functions
toCharArray()
toLowerCase() and toUpperCase()
trim()
length()
Testing variables on the board
Some explanations
The scope concept
static, volatile, and const qualifiers
static
volatile
const
Operators, operator structures, and precedence
Arithmetic operators and types
Character types
Numerical types
Condensed notations and precedence
Increment and decrement operators
Types manipulations
Choosing the right type
Implicit and explicit types conversions
Implicit type conversion
Explicit type conversion
Comparing values and Boolean operators
Comparison expressions
Combining comparisons with Boolean operators
Combining negation and comparisons
Adding conditions in the code
if and else conditional structure
Chaining an if…else structure to another if…else structure
if…else structure with combined comparisons expressions
Finding all cases for a conditional structure
switch…case…break conditional structure
Ternary operator
Making smart loops for repetitive tasks
for loop structure
Playing with increment
More complex increments
Decrements are negative increments
Using imbricated for loops or two indexes
while loop structure
do…while loop structure
Breaking the loops
Infinite loops are not your friends
Summary
4. Improve Programming with Functions, Math, and Timing
Introducing functions
Structure of a function
Creating function prototypes using the Arduino IDE
Header and name of functions
Body and statements of functions
Benefits of using functions
Easier coding and debugging
Better modularity helps reusability
Better readability
C standard mathematical functions and Arduino
Trigonometric C functions in the Arduino core
Some prerequisites
Difference between radians and degrees
Cosine, sine, and tangent
Arccosine, arcsine, and arctangent
Trigonometry functions
Exponential functions and some others
Approaching calculation optimization
The power of the bit shift operation
What are bit operations?
Binary numeral system
Easily converting a binary number to a decimal number
AND, OR, XOR, and NOT operators
AND
OR
XOR
NOT
Bit shift operations
It is all about performance
The switch case labels optimization techniques
Optimizing the range of cases
Optimizing cases according to their frequency
Smaller the scope, the better the board
The Tao of returns
Direct returns concept
Use void if you don't need return
Secrets of lookup tables
Table initialization
Replacing pure calculation with array index operations
Taylor series expansion trick
The Arduino core even provides pointers
Time measure
Does the Arduino board own a watch?
The millis() function
The micros() function
Delay concept and the program flow
What does the program do during the delay?
The polling concept – a special interrupt case
The interrupt handler concept
What is a thread?
A real-life polling library example
Installing an external library
Let's test the code
Summary
5. Sensing with Digital Inputs
Sensing the world
Sensors provide new capacities
Some types of sensors
Quantity is converted to data
Data has to be perceived
What does digital mean?
Digital and analog concepts
Inputs and outputs of Arduino
Introducing a new friend – Processing
Is Processing a language?
Let's install and launch it
A very familiar IDE
Alternative IDEs and versioning
Checking an example
Processing and Arduino
Pushing the button
What is a button, a switch?
Different types of switches
A basic circuit
Wires
The circuit in the real world
The pull-up and pull-down concept
The pseudocode
The code
Making Arduino and Processing talk
The communication protocol
Protocol requirements
Protocol design
The Processing code
Sketching a pseudocode
Let's write that code
Variable definitions
setup()
draw()
The serialEvent() callback
The new Arduino firmware talk-ready
Playing with multiple buttons
The circuit
The Arduino code
The Processing code
Understanding the debounce concept
What? Who is bouncing?
How to debounce
Summary
6. Sensing the World – Feeling with Analog Inputs
Sensing analog inputs and continuous values
How many values can we distinguish?
Reading analog inputs
The real purpose of the potentiometer
Changing the blinking delay of an LED with a potentiometer
How to turn the Arduino into a low voltage voltmeter?
Calculating the precision
Introducing Max 6, the graphical programming framework
A brief history of Max/MSP
Global concepts
What is a graphical programming framework?
Max, for the playground
MSP, for sound
Jitter, for visuals
Gen, for a new approach to code generation
Summarizing everything in one table
Installing Max 6
The very first patch
Playing sounds with the patch
Controlling software using hardware
Improving the sequencer and connecting the Arduino
Let's connect the Arduino to Max 6
The serial object in Max 6
Tracing and Debugging easily in Max 6
Understanding Arduino messages in Max 6
What is really sent on the wire?
Extracting only the payload?
ASCII conversions and symbols
Playing with sensors
Measuring distances
Reading a datasheet?
Let's wire things
Coding the firmware
Reading the distance in Max 6
Measuring flexion
Resistance calculations
Sensing almost everything
Multiplexing with a CD4051 multiplexer/demultiplexer
Multiplexing concepts
Multiple multiplexing/demultiplexing techniques
Space-division multiplexing
Frequency-division multiplexing
Time-division multiplexing
The CD4051B analog multiplexer
What is an integrated circuit?
Wiring the CD4051B IC?
Identifying pin number 1
Supplying the IC
Analog I/O series and the common O/I
Selecting the digital pin
Summary
7. Talking over Serial
Serial communication
Serial and parallel communication
Types and characteristics of serial communications
Synchronous or asynchronous
Duplex mode
Peering and bus
Master and slave buses
Data encoding
Multiple serial interfaces
The powerful Morse code telegraphy ancestor
The famous RS-232
From 25 wires to 3
The elegant I2C
The synchronous SPI
The omnipresent USB
USB system design
USB connectors and cables
FTDI IC converting RS-232 to USB
Summary
8. Designing Visual Output Feedback
Using LEDs
Different types of LEDs
Monochromatic LEDS
Polychromatic LEDs
Remembering the Hello LED example
Multiple monochromatic LEDs
Two buttons and two LEDs
Control and feedback coupling in interaction design
The coupling firmware
More LEDs?
Multiplexing LEDs
Connecting 75HC595 to Arduino and LEDs
Firmware for shift register handling
Global shift register programming pattern
Playing with chance and random seeds
Daisy chaining multiple 74HC595 shift registers
Linking multiple shift registers
Firmware handling two shift registers and 16 LEDs
Current short considerations
Using RGB LEDs
Some control concepts
Different types of RGB LEDs
Lighting an RGB LED
Red, Green, and Blue light components and colors
Multiple imbricated for() loops
Building LED arrays
A new friend named transistor
The Darlington transistors array, ULN2003
The LED matrix
Cycling and POV
The circuit
The 3 x 3 LED matrix code
Simulating analog outputs with PWM
The pulse-width modulation concept
Dimming an LED
A higher resolution PWM driver component
Quick introduction to LCD
HD44780-compatible LCD display circuit
Displaying some random messages
Summary
9. Making Things Move and Creating Sounds
Making things vibrate
The piezoelectric sensor
Wiring a vibration motor
Firmware generating vibrations
Higher current driving and transistors
Controlling a servo
When do we need servos?
How to control servos with Arduino
Wiring one servo
Firmware controlling one servo using the Servo library
Multiple servos with external power supply
Three servos and an external power supply
Driving three servos with firmware
Controlling stepper motors
Wiring a unipolar stepper to Arduino
Firmware controlling the stepper motor
Air movement and sounds
What is sound actually?
How to describe sound
Microphones and speakers
Digital and analog domains
How to digitalize sound
How to play digital bits as sounds
How Arduino helps produce sounds
Playing basic sound bits
Wiring the cheapest sound circuit
Playing random tones
Improving the sound engine with Mozzi
Setting up a circuit and Mozzi library
An example sine wave
Oscillators
Wavetables
Frequency modulation of a sine wave
Adding a pot
Upgrading the firmware for input handling
Controlling the sound using envelopes and MIDI
An overview of MIDI
MIDI and OSC libraries for Arduino
Generating envelopes
Implementing envelopes and MIDI
Wiring a MIDI connector to Arduino
Playing audio files with the PCM library
The PCM library
WAV2C – converting your own sample
Wiring the circuit
Other reader libraries
Summary
10. Some Advanced Techniques