Visual Distance Detector

The idea of this work was inspired by the car parking sensor. While parking your car starts playing a sound that gets louder the closer you get to an object. Likewise in my Arduino the close you get to the object the “Redder” the RGB LED light becomes. The farther you are from the object, the sensor becomes a blueish color. This way you can visually measure the distance between you and an object.

The ultrasonic sensor measures the time taken to get the response back from the object, which I later converted into the distance. RGB LED light displays the color based on the distance calculated before. A switch turns on the whole program when pressed. To display, the program works a green LED light lights on when the switch is pressed.

 

 

This snippet of the code is the main logic of the program. Quite simple. If the button is pressed then display the distance by showing Red and Blue colors. Otherwise, turn them to zero, and the green Led light to Low value.

rgb_color_value= constrain(distance, 0, 255);
  if (digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN) == HIGH) {
    digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);
    analogWrite(PIN_RED, max(0, 255 - 2 * rgb_color_value));
    analogWrite(PIN_BLUE, rgb_color_value);
  }
  else {
    digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW);
    analogWrite(PIN_RED, 0);
    analogWrite(PIN_BLUE, 0);
  }

In the future, I would like to add the sound just like in the car. This will allow measuring distance without looking anywhere. Also, a cool idea would be added to connect a projector to Arduino that displays an image stating “Stop! Too close” or “It’s ok. Go farther”. It would definitely look cool 🙂