Infrared sensors find numerous applications in electronic systems.

Commonly used as obstacle detector, their output is used in digital form (high & low logic) by employing a comparator. This topic explains a way to use the sensors output in its original analog form. Thus, along with detecting an obstacle, its exact distance can also be obtained. This is achieved by processing the output of IR sensor through an ADC0804 (analog to digital converter). The ADC is calibrated to get almost accurate distance measurement.

The measured distance is also displayed on an LCD screen. The ADC0804 and LCD are interfaced with 8051 microcontroller (AT89C51) to perform these operations. The major drawback of IR based sensors is their capability of detecting short distances.

Description his project mainly consists of three units: a sensor unit, an ADC component and the LCD module. The IR receiver detects the IR radiations transmitted by an IR LED. The output voltage level of this IR sensor depends upon the intensity of IR rays received by the receiver. The intensity, in turn, depends on the distance between the sensor module and the obstacle. When the distance between IR pair and obstacle is lesser, more IR radiations fall on the receiver, and vice versa. The receiver along with a resistor forms a voltage divider whose

output is supplied as the input for ADC0804.

components

IR led

An IR LED, also known as IR transmitter, is a special purpose LED that transmits infrared rays in the range of 760 nm wavelength. Such LEDs are usually made of

gallium arsenide or aluminium gallium arsenide. They, along with IR receivers, are commonly used as sensors.

The appearance is same as a common LED. Since the human eye cannot see the infrared radiations, it is not possible for a person to identify whether the IR LED is working or not, unlike a common LED. To overcome this problem, the camera on a cellphone can be used. The camera can show us the IR rays being emanated from the IR LED in a circuit. A preset is a three legged electronic component which can be made to offer varying resistance in a circuit. The resistance is varied by adjusting the rotary control over it. The adjustment can be done by using a small screw driver or a similar tool. The resistance does not vary linearly but rather varies in exponential or logarithmic manner. Such variable resistors are commonly used for adjusting sensitivity along with a sensor.

The variable resistance is obtained across the single terminal at front and one of the two other terminals. The two legs at back offer fixed resistance which is divided by the front leg. So whenever only the back terminals are used, a preset acts as a fixed resistor. Presets are specified by their fixed value resistance.

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Lcd

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen is an electronic display module and find a wide range of applications. A 16x2 LCD display is very basic module and is very commonly used in various devices and circuits. These modules are preferred over seven segments and other multi segment LEDs. The reasons being: LCDs are economical; easily programmable; have no limitation of displaying special & even custom characters (unlike in seven segments), animations and so on. A 16x2 LCD means it can display 16 characters per line and there are 2 such lines. In this LCD each character is displayed in 5x7 pixel matrix. This LCD has two registers, namely, Command and Data. The command register stores the command instructions given to the LCD. A command is an instruction given to LCD to do a predefined task like initializing it,

clearing its screen, setting the cursor position, controlling display etc. The data register stores the data to be displayed on the LCD. The data is the ASCII value of the character to be displayed on the LCD.

AT89C51 is an 8-bit microcontroller and belongs to Atmel's 8051 family. ATMEL 89C51 has 4KB of Flash programmable and erasable read only memory (PEROM) and 128 bytes of RAM. It can be erased and program to a maximum of 1000 times.

In 40 pin AT89C51, there are four ports designated as P1, P2, P3 and P0. All these ports are 8-bit bi-directional ports, i.e., they can be used as both input and output ports. Except P0 which needs external pull-ups, rest of the ports have internal pullups. When 1s are written to these port pins, they are pulled high by the internal pullups and can be used as inputs. These ports are also bit addressable and so their bits can also be accessed individually.

Port P0 and P2 are also used to provide low byte and high byte addresses, respectively, when connected to an external memory. Port 3 has multiplexed pins for special functions like serial communication, hardware interrupts, timer inputs and read/write operation from external memory. AT89C51 has an inbuilt UART for serial communication. It can be programmed to operate at different baud rates. Including two timers & hardware interrupts, it has a total of six interrupts.

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Analog to digital converters find huge application as an intermediate device to convert the signals from analog to digital form. These digital signals are used for

further processing by the digital processors. Various sensors like temperature, pressure, force etc. convert the physical characteristics into electrical signals that are analog in nature.

ADC0804 is a very commonly used 8-bit analog to digital convertor. It is a single channel IC, i.e., it can take only one analog signal as input. The digital outputs vary from 0 to a maximum of 255. The step size can be adjusted by setting the reference voltage at pin9. When this pin is not connected, the default reference voltage is the operating voltage, i.e., Vcc. The step size at 5V is 19.53mV (5V/255), i.e., for every 19.53mV rise in the analog input, the output varies by 1 unit. To set a particular voltage level as the reference value, this pin is connected to half the voltage. For example, to set a reference of 4V (Vref), pin9 is connected to 2V (Vref/2), thereby reducing the step size to 15.62mV (4V/255).

ADC0804 needs a clock to operate. The time taken to convert the analog value to digital value is dependent on this clock source. An external clock can be given at the Clock IN pin. ADC 0804 also has an inbuilt clock which can be used in absence of external clock. A suitable RC circuit is connected between the Clock IN and Clock R pins to use the internal clock.

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