Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Main Menu Session 2559

Using a Microcontroller for Sonar Ranging

Hesham Shaalan, Ph.D., and Darrell Morris School of Technology Georgia Southern University Statesboro, Georgia

1. Introduction

The Senior Project is the capstone course in the Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) curriculum at Georgia Southern University. It consists of an individually chosen project that is taken from concept through design to a finished state. It includes related CAD, specifications, theory of operation, and oral/written reporting1.

The purpose of the Senior Project described in this paper is to design a system that will indicate to a driver how close an object is to the back of the vehicle. The system design is based on using a microcontroller and an ultrasonic ranging unit mounted on the back of the vehicle. The distance to an object can be calculated based on the time it takes for a transmitted pulse to bounce off of the object and return to the transducer. This distance can then be displayed to the driver by either audio or visual means. Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the overall system.

The microcontroller is a device similar to the microprocessor, but it is used in control oriented applications. It is a single integrated circuit that includes a CPU, RAM, ROM, timers, and interface circuitry. Microcontrollers can be found in products such as automobiles, home appliances, and industrial equipment 2.

Pulse Ultrasonic Microcontroller Display of Object ranging unit distance

Figure 1: block diagram of the overall system

2. System Design

The following design criteria was used in selecting a microcontroller for this project:

1. It must be capable of being reprogrammed easily to facilitate testing and program debugging. 2. It must have at least one 16-bit timer. 3. It must have at least 9 lines available for output and one available for input (10 total I/O lines).

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright Ó 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

Main Menu

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Morris, D., & Shaalan, H. (2002, June), Using A Microcontroller For Sonar Ranging Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--11140