How to Make an Arduino Radar - HowToMechatronics

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Arduino Radar Project

HowToMechatronics > Projects > Arduino Radar Project

In this tutorial I will show you how you can make this cool looking radar using the Arduino Board and the Processing
Development Environment. (Watch DEMO here)
All you need for this project is an Ultrasonic Sensor for detecting the objects, a small hobbyist Servo Motor for rotating the

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sensor
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Parts used in this Arduino Project:

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Arduino Mega Board

Arduino Projects
Arduino Processing

Ultrasonic Sensor - HC-SR04 (Tutorial)

Servo Motor - Tower Pro
Breadboard
Jump Wires

Building the device

First I made a cardboard stand for connecting the Ultrasonic sensor to the Servo motor. I folded it like it's shown on the
picture below, glued it and secured to the servo motor using a screw like this.

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Also I attached a pin header on which I soldered 4 jumper wires for connecting the sensor.
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Finally I secured the servo motor to the Arduino Board using an elastic band.

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Circuit Schematics
967 I connected the Ultrasonic Sensor HC-SR04 to the pins number 10 and 11 and the servo motor to the pin number 12 on
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the Arduino Board.

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Source codes
Now we need to make a code and upload it to the Arduino Board that will enable the interaction between the Arduino and
the Processing IDE. For understanding how the connection works click here to visit my Arduino and Processing Tutorial.

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Heres the Arduino Source Code with description of each line of the code:
// Includes the Servo library

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#include <Servo.h>.
// Defines Tirg and Echo pins of the Ultrasonic Sensor

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const int trigPin = 10;

const int echoPin = 11;
// Variables for the duration and the distance

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long duration;
int distance;

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Servo myServo; // Creates a servo object for controlling the servo motor
void setup() {

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pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT); // Sets the trigPin as an Output

pinMode(echoPin, INPUT); // Sets the echoPin as an Input
Serial.begin(9600);
myServo.attach(12); // Defines on which pin is the servo motor attached

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void loop() {

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// rotates the servo motor from 15 to 165 degrees

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for(int i=15;i<=165;i++){

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myServo.write(i);

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delay(30);

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distance = calculateDistance();// Calls a function for calculating the distance measured

by the Ultrasonic sensor for each degree

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Serial.print(i); // Sends the current degree into the Serial Port

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Serial.print(","); // Sends addition character right next to the previous value needed
later in the Processing IDE for indexing
Serial.print(distance); // Sends the distance value into the Serial Port

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Serial.print("."); // Sends addition character right next to the previous value needed
later in the Processing IDE for indexing

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// Repeats the previous lines from 165 to 15 degrees

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for(int i=165;i>15;i--){

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myServo.write(i);

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delay(30);
distance = calculateDistance();

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Serial.print(i);

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Serial.print(",");

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Serial.print(distance);

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Serial.print(".");

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// Function for calculating the distance measured by the Ultrasonic sensor

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int calculateDistance(){

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digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);

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delayMicroseconds(2);

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// Sets the trigPin on HIGH state for 10 micro seconds

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digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);

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delayMicroseconds(10);

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digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);

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duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH); // Reads the echoPin, returns the sound wave travel
time in microseconds

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distance= duration*0.034/2;

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return distance;

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Now we will receive the values for the angle and the distance measured by the sensor from the Arduino Board into the
Processing IDE using the SerialEvent() function which reads the data from the Serial Port and we will put the values of the
angle and the distance into the variables iAngle and iDistance. These variable will be used for drawing the radar, the lines, the
detected objects and some of the text.

For drawing the radar I made this function drawRadar() which consist of arc() and line() functions.
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void drawRadar() {
pushMatrix();

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translate(960,1000); // moves the starting coordinats to new location

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noFill();

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strokeWeight(2);

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stroke(98,245,31);

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// draws the arc lines

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arc(0,0,1800,1800,PI,TWO_PI);

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arc(0,0,1400,1400,PI,TWO_PI);

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arc(0,0,1000,1000,PI,TWO_PI);
arc(0,0,600,600,PI,TWO_PI);

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// draws the angle lines

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line(-960,0,960,0);

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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(30)),-960*sin(radians(30)));

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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(60)),-960*sin(radians(60)));

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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(90)),-960*sin(radians(90)));

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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(120)),-960*sin(radians(120)));

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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(150)),-960*sin(radians(150)));

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line(-960*cos(radians(30)),0,960,0);
popMatrix();

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For drawing the line that is moving along the radar I made this function drawLine(). Its center of rotation is set with the
translate() function and using the line() function in which the iAngle variable is used the line is redrawn for each degree.
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void drawLine() {

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pushMatrix();

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strokeWeight(9);

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stroke(30,250,60);

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translate(960,1000); // moves the starting coordinats to new location

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line(0,0,950*cos(radians(iAngle)),-950*sin(radians(iAngle))); // draws the line according

to the angle
popMatrix();

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For drawing the detected objects I made this drawObject() function. It gets the distance from ultrasonic sensor, transforms it
into pixels and in combination with the angle of the sensor draws the object on the radar.
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void drawObject() {

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pushMatrix();

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translate(960,1000); // moves the starting coordinats to new location

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strokeWeight(9);

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stroke(255,10,10); // red color

pixsDistance = iDistance*22.5; // covers the distance from the sensor from cm to pixels

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// limiting the range to 40 cms

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if(iDistance<40){

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// draws the object according to the angle and the distance

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line(pixsDistance*cos(radians(iAngle)),pixsDistance*sin(radians(iAngle)),950*cos(radians(iAngle)),-950*sin(radians(iAngle)));

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popMatrix();

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Arduino Ultrasonic
Arduino Distance Sensor
Servo Motor Arduino

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the text on the screen I made the drawText() function which draws texts on particular locations.
All of these functions are called in the main draw() function which repeats all the time and draws the screen. Also here I am
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using this fill() function with 2 parameters for simulating motion blur and slow fade of the moving line.
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void draw() {
fill(98,245,31);
textFont(orcFont);

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// simulating motion blur and slow fade of the moving line

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noStroke();

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fill(0,4);
rect(0, 0, width, 1010);

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fill(98,245,31); // green color

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// calls the functions for drawing the radar

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drawRadar();

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drawLine();

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drawObject();
drawText();

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Here's the final appearance of the radar:

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Here's the complete Processing Source Code of the Arduino Radar:

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import processing.serial.*; // imports library for serial communication

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import java.awt.event.KeyEvent; // imports library for reading the data from the serial port
import java.io.IOException;

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Serial myPort; // defines Object Serial

// defubes variables
String angle="";
String distance="";
String data="";

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String noObject;
float pixsDistance;

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int iAngle, iDistance;

int index1=0;
int index2=0;
PFont orcFont;

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void setup() {
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size (1920, 1080);

smooth();

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myPort = new Serial(this,"COM4", 9600); // starts the serial communication

myPort.bufferUntil('.'); // reads the data from the serial port up to the character '.'. So
actually it reads this: angle,distance.
orcFont = loadFont("OCRAExtended-30.vlw");
}

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void draw() {

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fill(98,245,31);

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textFont(orcFont);

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// simulating motion blur and slow fade of the moving line

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noStroke();
fill(0,4);

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rect(0, 0, width, 1010);

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fill(98,245,31); // green color

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// calls the functions for drawing the radar

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drawRadar();

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drawLine();

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drawObject();
drawText();

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void serialEvent (Serial myPort) { // starts reading data from the Serial Port

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// reads the data from the Serial Port up to the character '.' and puts it into the String
variable "data".

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data = myPort.readStringUntil('.');

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data = data.substring(0,data.length()-1);

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index1 = data.indexOf(","); // find the character ',' and puts it into the variable
"index1"

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angle= data.substring(0, index1); // read the data from position "0" to position of the
variable index1 or thats the value of the angle the Arduino Board sent into the Serial Port

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distance= data.substring(index1+1, data.length()); // read the data from position "index1"

to the end of the data pr thats the value of the distance

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// converts the String variables into Integer

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iAngle = int(angle);

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iDistance = int(distance);

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void drawRadar() {

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pushMatrix();

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translate(960,1000); // moves the starting coordinats to new location

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noFill();
strokeWeight(2);

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stroke(98,245,31);

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// draws the arc lines

arc(0,0,1800,1800,PI,TWO_PI);
arc(0,0,1400,1400,PI,TWO_PI);
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arc(0,0,1000,1000,PI,TWO_PI);
arc(0,0,600,600,PI,TWO_PI);
// draws the angle lines

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line(-960,0,960,0);
line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(30)),-960*sin(radians(30)));
line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(60)),-960*sin(radians(60)));

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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(90)),-960*sin(radians(90)));
line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(120)),-960*sin(radians(120)));
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line(0,0,-960*cos(radians(150)),-960*sin(radians(150)));
line(-960*cos(radians(30)),0,960,0);
popMatrix();

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void drawObject() {
pushMatrix();

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translate(960,1000); // moves the starting coordinats to new location

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strokeWeight(9);

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stroke(255,10,10); // red color

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pixsDistance = iDistance*22.5; // covers the distance from the sensor from cm to pixels

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// limiting the range to 40 cms

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if(iDistance<40){
// draws the object according to the angle and the distance

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line(pixsDistance*cos(radians(iAngle)),pixsDistance*sin(radians(iAngle)),950*cos(radians(iAngle)),-950*sin(radians(iAngle)));
}
popMatrix();

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void drawLine() {

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pushMatrix();

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strokeWeight(9);

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stroke(30,250,60);

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translate(960,1000); // moves the starting coordinats to new location

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line(0,0,950*cos(radians(iAngle)),-950*sin(radians(iAngle))); // draws the line according

to the angle
popMatrix();
}

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void drawText() { // draws the texts on the screen

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pushMatrix();

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if(iDistance>40) {

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noObject = "Out of Range";

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else {
noObject = "In Range";

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fill(0,0,0);

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noStroke();

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rect(0, 1010, width, 1080);

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fill(98,245,31);

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textSize(25);

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text("10cm",1180,990);

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text("20cm",1380,990);

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text("30cm",1580,990);
text("40cm",1780,990);

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textSize(40);

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text("Object: " + noObject, 240, 1050);

text("Angle: " + iAngle +" ", 1050, 1050);
text("Distance: ", 1380, 1050);
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if(iDistance<40) {
text("

" + iDistance +" cm", 1400, 1050);

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textSize(25);
fill(98,245,60);
translate(961+960*cos(radians(30)),982-960*sin(radians(30)));

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rotate(-radians(-60));
text("30",0,0);
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resetMatrix();
translate(954+960*cos(radians(60)),984-960*sin(radians(60)));
rotate(-radians(-30));

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text("60",0,0);

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resetMatrix();

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translate(945+960*cos(radians(90)),990-960*sin(radians(90)));
rotate(radians(0));

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text("90",0,0);

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resetMatrix();

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translate(935+960*cos(radians(120)),1003-960*sin(radians(120)));

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rotate(radians(-30));

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text("120",0,0);

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resetMatrix();

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translate(940+960*cos(radians(150)),1018-960*sin(radians(150)));

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rotate(radians(-60));

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text("150",0,0);
popMatrix();

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