Arduino Serial Communication¶

Overview¶

This example shows how to control an Arduino board connected via usb interface in order to switch on/off a led. The code is very simple but it’s a base from which to create more complex plugin using serial protocol.

Configuration¶

To configure the plugin open arduinousb-manifest.xml in its folder and change the following properties. By default you need to change only the port name and set the one in use.

• serial.port: port name e.g. /dev/ttyACM0 for Linux or COMx for Windows
• serial.baudrate: baudrate of Arduino serial port (the same used in the sketch)
• serial.databits: databits of Arduino serial port
• serial.parity: parity bit of Arduino serial port
• serial.stopbits: stop bit of Arduino serial port
• chunk.terminator: read serial string terminator (by default “
” as “n”)
• chunk.size: size of chunk to read from serial
• delimiter: fields delimiter in read string

Arduino sketch¶

The following sketch must be uploaded to your arduino board. It’s very simple: when it receives a char ‘a’ from serial connection it switch on the led connected to pin 13. Viceversa with ‘b’ char the led is switched off. Every command writes a string on serial.

void setup() {
   Serial.begin(9600);
   //Set all the pins we need to output pins
   pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
 }

 void loop (){
   if (Serial.available()) {

   //read serial as a character
   char ser = Serial.read();

   //NOTE because the serial is read as "char" and not "int", the read value
   //must be compared to character numbers
   //hence the quotes around the numbers in the case statement
   switch (ser) {
     case 'a':
       pinON(13);
       Serial.println("13;on");
       break;
       case 'b':
       pinOFF(13);
       Serial.println("13;off");
       break;
     }
    }
   }

   void pinON(int pin){
     digitalWrite(pin, HIGH);
   }

   void pinOFF(int pin){
     digitalWrite(pin, LOW);
   }

Download¶

Download plugin latest version

Source code¶

GitHub repository