Communicating with Arduino from a Computer

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hi all,
for starters, I have a strong programming background but am trying to learn a bit more about circuitry/microcontrollers, so this is my first experience with Arduino (I know very little so far).

I have a project where I want to basically have a laptop connected to an arduino board, and be able to communicate between the two. For example, I want the laptop to be able to send commands to the arduino board to do things like drive a servo. I'd also like to be able to get data back from the arduino board - for example, if I have a temperature sensor, I'd like the computer to be able to read it. Thus this isn't an entirely standalone arduino project.

My main questions -

  • Does anyone have any useful links or information on how this can be accomplished? Any similar projects people have blogged/written about, etc
  • How can I communicate between the two? Can I use the usb port, and is there a driver on the computer side that works on Windows that I can use to call into the arduino board, etc?

I'm fine with reading so would greatly appreciate any useful links. Thanks!

2

There are many choices in this area. My personal favorite is python. With the PySerial library its easy to talk to the arduino
http://arduino.cc/playground/Interfacing/Python

This is my code for sending the time in a packed value to the arduino.
It also waits for the arduino to ask for the time. This is a very simple example and you don't have to use python.

import serial, sys, os, time, struct, datetime

SERIALPORT = "COM2" # Change this to your serial port!
day = 0

def packIntegerAsULong(value):
        return struct.pack('I', value)

try:
    ser = serial.Serial(SERIALPORT, 9600)
except serial.SerialException:
    print "no device connected - exiting"
    sys.exit()

while 1 == 1:
    now = datetime.datetime.now()
    day2 = now.day
    dst_adj_time=time.time()-time.altzone
    if time.localtime().tm_isdst==0:
        dst_adj_time=dst_adj_time-3600
    if day2!=day:
        ser.write('6')
        ser.write(packIntegerAsULong(int(dst_adj_time)))
        print time.ctime()
        day = now.day
    if ser.inWaiting(): 
        outinit = eval(ser.readline())
        if outinit==1001:
            ser.write('6')
            ser.write(packIntegerAsULong(int(dst_adj_time)))
            print time.ctime()
3

You can check : Processing. http://www.processing.org. It can do both ways. Just program it. I did a few experiments with Processing and Arduino. Just basic - "hello word"

4

There is agood youtube tutorial series for the arduino made by jeremy blum...in part 6 it talks about serial processing...you can have a look, maybe it will help :slight_smile: