Seeed PING Ultrasonic Rangefinder

A short ultrasonic pulse is transmitted at the time 0, reflected by an object. The senor receives this signal and converts it to an electric signal. The next pulse can be transmitted when the echo is faded away. This time period is called cycle period. The recommend cycle period should be no less than 50ms. If a 10μs width trigger pulse is sent to the signal pin, the Ultrasonic module will output eight 40kHz ultrasonic signal and detect the echo back. The measured distance is proportional to the echo pulse width and can be calculated by the formula above. If no obstacle is detected, the output pin will give a 38ms high level signal.

Features

Detecting range: 3cm-4m
Best in 30 degree angle
Electronic brick compatible interface
5VDC power supply
Breadboard friendly
Dual transducer
Arduino library ready

Specifications

Supply voltage 5 v
Global Current Consumption 15 mA
Ultrasonic Frequency 40k Hz
Maximal Range 400 cm
Minimal Range 3 cm
Resolution 1 cm
Trigger Pulse Width 10 μs
Outline Dimension 43x20x15 mm

Documents

• Arduino PING Tutorial

Arduino Code

/* Ping))) Sensor
  
   This sketch reads a PING))) ultrasonic rangefinder and returns the
   distance to the closest object in range. To do this, it sends a pulse
   to the sensor to initiate a reading, then listens for a pulse 
   to return.  The length of the returning pulse is proportional to 
   the distance of the object from the sensor.
     
   The circuit:
  * +V connection of the PING))) attached to +5V
  * GND connection of the PING))) attached to ground
  * SIG connection of the PING))) attached to digital pin 7

   http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Ping
   
   created 3 Nov 2008
   by David A. Mellis
   modified 30 Jun 2009
   by Tom Igoe
 
   This example code is in the public domain.

 */

// this constant won't change.  It's the pin number
// of the sensor's output:
const int pingPin = 7;

void 
setup
() {
  // initialize serial communication:
  
Serial
.begin(9600);
}

void 
loop
()
{
  // establish variables for duration of the ping, 
  // and the distance result in inches and centimeters:
  long duration, inches, cm;

  // The PING))) is triggered by a HIGH pulse of 2 or more microseconds.
  // Give a short LOW pulse beforehand to ensure a clean HIGH pulse:
  pinMode(pingPin, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW);
  delayMicroseconds(2);
  digitalWrite(pingPin, HIGH);
  delayMicroseconds(15);
  digitalWrite(pingPin, LOW);
  delayMicroseconds(20);
  // The same pin is used to read the signal from the PING))): a HIGH
  // pulse whose duration is the time (in microseconds) from the sending
  // of the ping to the reception of its echo off of an object.
  pinMode(pingPin, INPUT);
  duration = pulseIn(pingPin, HIGH);

  // convert the time into a distance
  inches = microsecondsToInches(duration);
  cm = microsecondsToCentimeters(duration);
  
  
Serial
.print(inches);
  
Serial
.print("in, ");
  
Serial
.print(cm);
  
Serial
.print("cm");
  
Serial
.println();
  
  delay(100);
}

long microsecondsToInches(long microseconds)
{
  // According to Parallax's datasheet for the PING))), there are
  // 73.746 microseconds per inch (i.e. sound travels at 1130 feet per
  // second).  This gives the distance travelled by the ping, outbound
  // and return, so we divide by 2 to get the distance of the obstacle.
  // See: http://www.parallax.com/dl/docs/prod/acc/28015-PING-v1.3.pdf
  return microseconds / 74 / 2;
}

long microsecondsToCentimeters(long microseconds)
{
  // The speed of sound is 340 m/s or 29 microseconds per centimeter.
  // The ping travels out and back, so to find the distance of the
  // object we take half of the distance travelled.
  return microseconds / 29 / 2;
}