10/08/2016 Communicate with Your Arduino Through Android

Communicate with Your Arduino Through

Android
October 16, 2015 by Hariharan Mathavan (/author/hariharan-mathavan)

Want to send text from your Android phone to your

Arduino? Here's how!

Requirements
Android Phone which supports USB Host Mode (i.e OTG Support)
- Most devices running Android 3.1+ support this. Check if your
phone does using the USB Host Diagnostics App from the Play Store.
Arduino (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/A000066/1050-
1024-ND/2784006) - Any version will do. I will be using an Uno R3 .
Arduino USB Cable (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10215)
USB OTG Cable (http://www.eagleg.com/micro-usb-otg-adapter-for-
samsung-galaxy-s3.html?
gclid=CjwKEAjw1_KwBRDEz_WvncL4jGwSJAAEym0d8K9lWRxKKI
MLGRgZaFIKsTxzMgGZW89XdZunqstphhoCY0Dw_wcB) - You will
need this to connect the USB cable of the Arduino to the micro-USB
port of the Smartphone. It costs about $5 on Amazon.
Android Studio
(http://developer.android.com/tools/studio/index.html) - You will need
to have this installed and setup. It is pretty easy to do that. Android
Studio makes app development easier with its predictions and code
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Studio makes app development easier with its predictions and code
generation. It's one of the best IDEs out there. You could also
follow this article to set up Android Studio on your computer.

Main Components of an Android App

There are 3 major files in an Android app:

MainActivity.java
This is where the Java code goes. It controls the way the app will
function.
activity_main.xml
This contains the layout of the app, i.e. the components or the
widget-like buttons, TextViews etc.
AndroidManifest.xml
This is where you define when the app must start, which permissions
it needs, and which hardware it needs to access.

There are a host of other files too but they are all linked together with the
help of these three.

An activity can be described as a screen where the user interacts with the
phone. Activities contain widgets like buttons, text fields, images, etc.,
which help in the transfer of information. This tutorial will use one activity,
the Main Activity, which will take the user's input to send to the Arduino
and also display the received text.

The Layout

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We will be using the same layout for both the USB App and the Bluetooth
App. It's a simple one with the minimum required widgets to test the
connection between the devices.

As you can see, it has an EditText widget for getting input from the user,
buttons to start the connection, transmit the data, end the connection and
clear the TextView. The recieved data is displayed in the TextView (the
empty part below the buttons).

Here's a part of the XML. Since the code for buttons is similar I've left them
out here. Get the complete code at the end of this article.

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_

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xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_
parent"

android:layout_height="match_parent"

android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"

android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"

android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"

android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context=".Mai
nActivity">

<EditText

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:id="@+id/editText"

android:layout_alignParentTop="true"

android:layout_alignParentRight="true"

android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"

android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

android:layout_alignParentStart="true" />

<Button

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:text="Begin"

android:id="@+id/buttonStart"

android:layout_below="@+id/editText"

android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

android:layout_alignParentStart="true"

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android:onClick="onClickStart"/>

<TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:id="@+id/textView"

android:layout_below="@+id/buttonSend"

android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

android:layout_alignParentStart="true"

android:layout_alignRight="@+id/editText"

android:layout_alignEnd="@+id/editText"

android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" />

</RelativeLayout>

I have used a RelativeLayout here, meaning that every widget is arranged

with respect to the widgets around it. The layout can be easily recreated
using the Design Tab where you can drag-and-drop the widgets wherever
you want. When a button is clicked, we will have to describe what needs
to happen. For this, an OnClick method is used. Specify the name of the
method in the XML of the button. To do this add the line:

android:onClick="onClickMethod"

Now hover on this line and an alert will pop up on the left like this:

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Click Create 'OnClick...'. This will automatically inject code for the onClick
method in MainActivity.java. You will have to do this for each button.

The USB Serial Library

Setting up a serial connection in Android is quite a hassle because it will
require you to manually configure a lot of stuff, so I had been looking at
some libraries which do all this automatically. I tested out a few of them
and finally settled on the UsbSerial library
(https://github.com/felHR85/UsbSerial/) by Github user felHR85
(https://github.com/felHR85/UsbSerial/releases). Among all the relevant
libraries I had found, this was the only one which is still being updated. It is
pretty easy to set up and use. To add this library to your project, download
the latest JAR file from Github. Move it to the 'libs' folder in your project's
directory. Then, in the file explorer of Android Studio, right-click the JAR
and select "Add as Library". That's it!

The Program Flow

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This is the brief outline of how we will proceed. Every activity has a
onCreate() method which is the run when the activity is created. Whatever
code you want to run at the start must be placed inside it. Do notice that
reading from the device is asynchronous, meaning it will keep running in
the background. This is done so that the data is received as soon as
possible .

Opening a Connection
First off, let us define the onClick method for the Begin button. When
clicked, it should search for all connected devices and then check if the
vendor ID of the Arduino matches that of a connected device. If found,
permission must be requested from the user. Each USB slave device has
a vendor and product ID which can be used to identify what drivers should
be used for it. The vendor ID for any Arduino is 0x2341 or 9025.

public void onClickStart(View view) {

HashMap usbDevices = usbManager.getDeviceList();

if (!usbDevices.isEmpty()) {
boolean keep = true;
for (Map.Entry entry : usbDevices.entrySet()) {
device = entry.getValue();
int deviceVID = device.getVendorId();
if (deviceVID == 0x2341)//Arduino Vendor ID
{
PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this, 0,
new Intent(ACTION_USB_PERMISSION), 0);
usbManager.requestPermission(device, pi);
keep = false;
} else {
connection = null;

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connection = null;
device = null;
}

if (!keep)
break;
}
}
}

Now let us define the BroadcastReceiver to receive the broadcast to ask

for user permission and also to start the connection automatically when a
device is connected and to close the connection when it is disconnected.

private final BroadcastReceiver broadcastReceiver = new BroadcastReceiver() {

//Broadcast Receiver to automatically start and stop the Serial connection.
@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
if (intent.getAction().equals(ACTION_USB_PERMISSION)) {
boolean granted =
intent.getExtras().getBoolean(UsbManager.EXTRA_PERMISSION_GRANT
ED);
if (granted) {
connection = usbManager.openDevice(device);
serialPort = UsbSerialDevice.createUsbSerialDevice(device,
connection);
if (serialPort != null) {
if (serialPort.open()) { //Set Serial Connection Parame
ters.
setUiEnabled(true); //Enable Buttons in UI
serialPort.setBaudRate(9600);
serialPort.setDataBits(UsbSerialInterface.DATA_BITS
_8);
serialPort.setStopBits(UsbSerialInterface.STOP_BITS
_1);
serialPort.setParity(UsbSerialInterface.PARITY_NON
E);
serialPort.setFlowControl(UsbSerialInterface.FLOW_C
ONTROL_OFF);
serialPort.read(mCallback); //

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tvAppend(textView,"Serial Connection Opened!\n");

} else {
Log.d("SERIAL", "PORT NOT OPEN");
}
} else {
Log.d("SERIAL", "PORT IS NULL");
}
} else {
Log.d("SERIAL", "PERM NOT GRANTED");
}
} else if (intent.getAction().equals(UsbManager.ACTION_USB_DEVICE_A
TTACHED)) {
onClickStart(startButton);
} else if (intent.getAction().equals(UsbManager.ACTION_USB_DEVICE_D
ETACHED)) {
onClickStop(stopButton);
}
};
};

If the first IF condition is satisfied, and if the user has granted permission,
initiate a connection for the device whose vendor ID matched our required
vendor ID. Also, if a broadcast for a device attach or detach is received,
manually call the onClick methods for the Start and Stop buttons. A
SerialPort is defined using the device as the connection as the arguments.
If this is successful, open the SerialPort and set the parameters
accordingly. For an Uno, the default parameters are 8 Data bits, 1 Stop bit,
no parity bit and Flow Control is Off. The baud rate can be 300, 600, 1200,
2400, 4800, 9600, 14400, 19200, 28800, 38400, 57600, or 115200, but let
us go with the standard 9600.

Receiving Data from the Device

In the code fragment above, notice the line that says

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In the code fragment above, notice the line that says

serialPort.read(mCallback). Here a reference of a Callback is passed to
the read function so that it will automatically trigger when any incoming
data is detected.

UsbSerialInterface.UsbReadCallback mCallback = new UsbSerialInterface.UsbReadCa

llback() {
//Defining a Callback which triggers whenever data is read.
@Override
public void onReceivedData(byte[] arg0) {
String data = null;
try {
data = new String(arg0, "UTF-8");
data.concat("/n");
tvAppend(textView, data);
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
};

The data received will be in the form of raw bytes. We will have to re-
encode it into a readable format like UTF-8. Then it is appended to the
TextView using a custom method named tvAppend(). This is done
because any change to the UI can only happen on the UI thread. Since
this Callback will be running as a background thread, it can't affect the UI
directly.

private void tvAppend(TextView tv, CharSequence text) { final TextView ftv = t

v; final CharSequence ftext = text; runOnUiThread(new Runnable() { @Override pu
blic void run() { ftv.append(ftext); } }); }

Sending Data to the Device

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Sending data is relatively easy when compared to reading data from the
device. It is a simple function call with bytes of data which needs to be
sent as the argument. This will be defined in the OnClick method of the
Send Button.

serialPort.write(string.getBytes());

Closing the Connection

To close the connection, just close the SerialPort.

serialPort.close();

The Application Manifest

In the manifest, state what extra permissions the app might require. The
only one needed is the permission to make the phone a USB host. Add the
following to the manifest:

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.usb.host" />

The app can be made to start automatically by adding an IntentFilter to the
MainActivity. This IntentFilter will be triggered when any new device is
attached. The kind of device can be explicitly specified by providing the
vendor ID and/or product ID in an XML file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="@string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>

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<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.hardware.usb.action.USB_DEVICE_AT
TACHED" />
</intent-filter>

<meta-data
android:name="android.hardware.usb.action.USB_DEVICE_ATTACHED"
android:resource="@xml/device_filter" />
</activity>

Notice the line "android:resource="@xml/device_filter". This tells the

compiler that it can find the device properties in a file named device_filter
in src/main/res/xml, so make a folder named "xml" in src/main/res and put
the following in it:

<resources>
<usb-device vendor-id="9025" />
<!-- Vendor ID of Arduino -->
</resources>

Testing the App

Build and run the app on your smartphone. Now fire up the Arduino IDE
and set up the Arduino to simply echo whatever it receives on the serial
port. Here's a very simple code to do that.

void setup()

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{
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
char c;
if(Serial.available())
{
c = Serial.read();
Serial.print(c);
}
}

Now connect the Arduino to the microUSB port using the OTG Cable. The
app must auto-start. Try sending some text and the same data will be
echoed back!

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(/uploads/articles/Screenshot_2015-10-11-20-38-59.png)

Conclusion
This article has helped to show how an Arduino can talk to your
smartphone. The uses for this are endless! In case data from any sensor
is needed and if that isn't available on board a smartphone, any
microcontroller can be used to read from that sensor and transmit the data
to the phone. The next part of the article will show how to connect using
the popular Bluetooth HC05 Module.

Next Article in the Series: Control an Arduino with Bluetooth

(http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/control-an-arduino-using-
your-phone/)

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