How to know which event fired first?

Question

I want to automate the chicken coop of my grandmother. To do so, I want to use Arduinos and NodeMCUs, respectively. I want to check if all chickens are in the coop at night and then close a little door. I was trying to use RFID technology and tag the chickens with a little RFID tag but the read range I got was too short to get it working properly. Now, I am trying to implement a light gate with two small lasers and two receivers. I want to detect the direction (in or out) of the chickens. I got the lasers working and I get a signal (1 and 0 = light gate interrupted). I have to know which of the two laser detectors first detected a 0 (zero). I have no idea how to implement this in code. I was trying to use timers to no avail. I also was trying to use interrupts (see small code fragment).

I hope I made clear what I am trying to achieve. Please tell me if and how I can improve this question. Any google fu was to no avail. Every hint/help is greatly appreciated.

#include <Arduino.h>

// Functions
void pin_ISR();

const int detectorPin = 3;     // the number of the detector pin
const int ledPin =  13;      // the number of the LED pin
const int Laser = 6;
// variables will change:
volatile int buttonState = 1;         // variable for reading the status

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
// initialize the LED pin as an output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// initialize the pushbutton pin as an input:
pinMode(detectorPin, INPUT);
pinMode(Laser, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(Laser, HIGH);
// Attach an interrupt to the ISR vector
attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(3), pin_ISR, CHANGE);
}

void loop() {
Serial.print(buttonState);
delay(100);
}

void pin_ISR() {
Serial.println("There was an interrupt!");
buttonState = digitalRead(detectorPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, buttonState);
}

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 01 '18 at 12:40

Consider using quadrature encoding to detect travel direction using two light beams. A method used in older mechanical mouse pointer devices and track balls. Using an Arduino to decode quadrature encoding is talked about in many places on the web.

Place beam A and beam B such that a chicken waling out of the coop will activate beam B first and beam A second.

Because the activation of beam B occurs first we know the chicken is walking out of the coop. If beam A occurred first we know the chicken is walking into the coop.

The shape of a chicken is irregular and a chicken may change its mind half way out of the coop. These and other unexpected anomalies may lead to unexpected results. Consider supplementing the beams with a PIR sensor outside the coop to confirm there are no chickens left outside.

How to know which event fired first?

1 Answers1