Microcontroller Serial Communications Articles

We have several related articles about Microcontroller Serial Communications on this site. These articles themselves have many links off site.

• Microcontroller Serial Communications Articles this article, the a root for the articles on the site.

• Often it's useful (at least for initial debugging, and later to unambiguously check what version of the code the Arduino is *actually* running) to have a simple text-based protocol to send commands to an Arduino and receive status from the Arduino:
  • Smarter Arduino Programming - Tips and Tricks which discusses the Arduino side of the starting point of a simple protocol: BlinkInstruct https://github.com/russ-hensel/BlinkInstruct
  • the Serial Monitor in the Arduino IDE (running on a laptop or a Raspberry Pi) is sufficient to do some debugging with a text-based protocol
  • Python Smart Terminal (running on a laptop or a Raspberry Pi) is discussed in many articles here (Category:SmartTerminal) can be used instead of the Arduino Serial Monitor; and makes a good starting point for more sophisticated programs (running on a Raspberry Pi or other dedicated server) that need to interact with an Arduino.

• BitWacker PIC and Other Microcontroller to Java Communications an oveview of the applications for Microcontroller Serial Communications.

• • RS232/USB Probe an application with much of the functionality of a terminal emulator but with specialized extensions for for MicroController command response control. The basis for a series of more specialized applications. See it for information on installation of all the applications and for access to the bug and enhancement list.

• • BitWacker Command GUI an application for issuing the basic commands of the BitWacker. Part of a series of articles based on the RS232/USB Probe

• • Graphical Data Logger an application data logging and graphing. Sometimes called the PICMeter. Part of a series of articles based on the RS232/USB Probe

• • USB Bit Whacker Brief discussion of this interesting development board with built in USB communications.

• • Making Your Own Microcontroller Serial Communications Application Using the code from the above applications to make your own.

• RS232 a discussion of some of the theory behind Microcontroller Serial Communications. The PC side of this is implemented by RS232/USB Probe and its related applications.

• Serial Communications (RS232) in BoostC and the earlier more limited Serial Communications Library -- BoostC and 16F877A are examples PIC programs and communications libraries that uses the techniques discussed in RS232, above.

• PC-Microcontroller Communications an article on some of the technology of microcontroller communications and lots of external links. List of terminal emulators and alternatives to Hyper Terminal.

• Analog Whacker a proposal for hardware to link the Bitwacker to the Graphical Data Logger above.

• SPI is a popular protocol for many small peripheral chips

• I2C is another popular protocol for many small peripheral chips

• CAN bus is designed to allow low-cost devices to communicate with each other within a vehicle without a host computer.

• Local Interconnect Network (LIN) is designed to be even lower-cost than CAN bus. Some large systems use many simple sensors in low-cost LIN sub-networks, then connect the single master of each LIN sub-network with CAN or some other backbone network.

• The 1-wire network is designed to be an even lower-cost network for small peripheral chips

• The Servo control system for remote-control vehicles

• JTAG is often used for programming and debugging.

Often a serial protocol is the interface between 2 programs in 2 completely different Programming Languages. It makes debugging much easier if the communications protocol is human-readable and human-writable.

Some microcontrollers have enough resources that the "application-level" data interface, the debugging interface ("debug port"), and the programming interface can each use completely separate, dedicated pins. Sometimes the same serial interface can be used for both "application-level" data (sensor data, motor torque / speed, PID settings, etc.) as well as debugging information. Once a microcontroller has been programmed with a bootloader, sometimes the same serial interface can also be used to send new software to the microcontroller. (Preferably the application protocol, the debug protocol, and the bootloader protocol can be easily distinguished so that a little debug information can squeeze in between bursts of application data, and neither one accidentally triggers the bootloader. ).

Microcontroller Projects that Use Serial Communications

• Stepper Motor Demonstration and Tester a project for both PIC's and Arduinos.

• Arduino Command Interpreter

• PIC based Stepper Motor Dancing Analog Clock

• Experimenting with IR Remotes using a PIC running BoostC Project

• Experimenting with Stepper Motors as Rotary Encoders using a PIC running BoostC Project

• Arduino Laser Cannon

Other Readings

• Projects#Audio as sensor data format: sending data as audio has many similarities (and some key differences) from sending data as binary Hi and Lo pulses.
• Radio communication has many similarities (and some key differences) from sending data as binary Hi and Lo pulses.
• Many Modules use serial communication
• PC-Microcontroller Communications often use serial communication
• Expansion bus discusses parallel communication, which was once far more common.

• Serial Programming -- From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection; which mentions some unavoidable tradeoffs in | Serial Programming/Forming Data Packets]
• Application Note 83 Fundamentals of RS–232 Serial Communications a pdf, good
• {Serial Communications Protocol} a pdf, not just for the PIC18

• Expansion bus is a more general article that covers various ways (including, but not limited to, serial interfaces) that processors (including, but not limited to, a microcontrollers) can communicate with other devices .