An ultrasonic ranger (or ultrasonic proximity sensor) is a short- to medium- range proximity sensor.
When you need to measure distance to an object from a few inches to a few feet away. It can also be used to detect simple motion directly in front of it, such as a wave or walk by. Note that while multiple of these sensors may be used in one project, they cannot sense simultaneously or they will interfere with each other.
The ultrasonic ranger works very similar to a bat's echolocation or the sonar system found on boats and submarines. It emits an ultrasonic chirp at roughly 40,000 Hz (inaudible to humans) and listens for an echo or reflection of the chirp. The time it takes between the chirp and the reply indicates the distance between the sensor and an object.
Sometimes a faint click or tapping sound can be heard; this is the sound of the ultrasonic chirp bouncing off of objects at lower frequencies.
The ultrasonic ranger is simple to connect. Connect GND to ground and VCC to 5V. The trigger and echo pins connect to two digital pins. The trigger pins tells the ranger when to chirp, and the echo pin indicates when the reply is heard.
This code requires the NewPing library. You can install it in the Arduino IDE by going to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries and searching for "NewPing." This library handles all of the code to trigger the ultrasonic ranger, wait for its echo reply, and convert the timings into distance.
/*
* This program sets up an ultrasonic ranger connected to
* TRIGGER_PIN and ECHO_PIN and sends the data back to the
* computer via serial.
*
* Initially by Tim Eckel from https://bitbucket.org/teckel12/arduino-new-ping/src/2ebf391d9be289aeb569c84115ee14705dd16d07/examples/NewPingExample/NewPingExample.pde
* Modified 2021-04-23 by Perry Naseck
*/
#include <NewPing.h>
const int TRIGGER_PIN = 12; // Digital output pin for chirp trigger
const int ECHO_PIN = 11; // Digital input pin for echo reply
// Maximum distance we want to ping for (in centimeters).
// Typical maximum sensor distance is rated to 100cm.
const int MAX_DIST = 100;
// Variable to keep track of the current proximity
int currentDist;
// Setup the ultrasonic ranger with the correct pins and
// maximum distance
NewPing mySonar(TRIGGER_PIN, ECHO_PIN, MAX_DIST);
void setup() {
// Setup serial port to send the current proximity back to the computer
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
// Get the ultrasonic ranger distance
// Can also use mySonar.ping_in() for inches
currentDist = mySonar.ping_cm();
// Send the data over serial
Serial.print("Ping (cm): ");
Serial.println(currentDist); // Send ping, get distance in cm and print result (0 = outside set distance range)
// Delay to not send messages too fast.
// In this case, delay is also to ensure that the sensor
// is not pinged too fast. Always wait at a minimum 29ms
// between pings.
delay(100);
}