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I working on a project where I want to collect sensor data (from a sensor) and I want to analyze the first 20 data sample (e.g., find the range, trendline e.t.c.). I know how to compile a timer interrupt in Arduino IDE (using an ISR timer), but how would I be able to do this something similar (ISR timer) in MATLAB. The reason being, I want to collect my sensor data at exactly 20 Hz and using a delay function can prove to be inaccurate. Also, when I run a sample program that collects data in MATLAB, my sample frequencies change from 15Hz to even 24Hz (as shown below) . Does anyone have any suggestion on how I can do this? If the question is not clear enough I can elaborate more in the comments.

This is my MATLAB code:

clear all;
a = arduino('com4', 'uno');
i = 0;
v1 = zeros(1e4,1);
v2 = zeros(1e4,1);
x = zeros(1e4,1);
t = timer('TimerFcn', 'stat=false; disp(''Timer!'')',... 
                 'StartDelay',5,'Period', 1);
start(t)

stat=true;
tic
while(stat==true)
   %while i<60
    i = i + 1;
    v1(i) = readVoltage(a, 'A0');
    v2(i) = readVoltage(a, 'A1');
    x(i) = i;
    disp(x(i));
    pause(.00001);


% end
end
toc


% %Plot voltage versus time
v1 = v1(1:i);
v2 = v2(1:i);
x = x(1:i);


p = v1;
n = v2;
%Plot voltage versus time
figure(1);
plot(x,p,'-',x,n,'-')
xlabel('Elapsed time (sec)')
ylabel('v')
title('Ten Seconds of voltage Data')
%set(gca,'xlim',[t(1) t(i)])
legend('v1', 'v2');


%
delete(t) % Always delete timer objects after using them.

Output is

>> Timer
     1

 2

 3

 4

 5

 6

 7

 8

 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

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25

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74

75




Timer!
    76


Elapsed time is 5.032553 seconds.
>>

I apologize for the long output. But as you can see, I specified a pause time of .00001, which should give me well over a 20Hz sampling frequency. But I only get 76 samples/5 seconds = 15.2Hz. Also, sometime when I run this the program may collect 79sample/5secons, or even 121sample/5seconds. It just is not consistent. I was hoping to solve this with a timer interrupt that will be hard coded in MATLAB to collect data at exactly 20Hz. Please let me know what y'all think. Thank you.

Dema Govalla
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2 Answers2

1

I've configured the timer differently making use of its UserData property. The timer will update the data every fixed period for a specified number of samples.

close all;
clear all;

% Some useful constants.
NUM_SAMPLES = 20;
PERIOD = 0.05;


global a;
a = arduino('com4', 'uno');


% Initialise data. It will be updated by the timer.
data.i = 0;
data.v1 = zeros(NUM_SAMPLES, 1);
data.v2 = zeros(NUM_SAMPLES, 1);
data.x = (1:NUM_SAMPLES) * PERIOD;


% Initialise timer for a fixed period for a specific number of samples.
t = timer;
t.ExecutionMode = 'fixedRate';
t.Period = PERIOD;
t.TasksToExecute = NUM_SAMPLES;
t.TimerFcn = @TimerCallback;
t.UserData = data;


% Run the timer and wait for it to complete.
start(t);
wait(t);
stop(t);
data = t.UserData;  % Retrieve the updated data.
delete(t);


% Plot voltage versus time.
figure(1);
plot(data.x, data.v1, '-', data.x, data.v2, '-');
xlabel('Elapsed time (s)');
ylabel('Voltage (V)');
title('Voltage Data');
st = sprintf("%0.3f seconds", NUM_SAMPLES * PERIOD);
subtitle(st);
legend('v1', 'v2');


function TimerCallback(obj, event)
    global a;
    obj.UserData.i = obj.UserData.i + 1;
    obj.UserData.v1(obj.UserData.i) = readVoltage(a, 'A0');
    obj.UserData.v2(obj.UserData.i) = readVoltage(a, 'A1');
end
tim
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0

Each communication with Arduino takes 20ms, you have two in the loop so in the ideal conditions you could get 25 readings/second. See here the source

This also depends on the size of the data you request.

I think this is what you are looking for but I cant give you any advice since I don't have Matlab and Octave is not having this feature.

Dorian
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