phototransistor-visualiser-app

A real-time sensor monitoring tool for phototransistors

📖 Table of Contents

• Abstract
• Features
• Open-Source
• How to Use
• Customization
• Installation
• Credits

Abstract

For my robotics team Roboticus, we needed a better way to monitor 32 phototransistor sensors while detecting a white line. Simply reading raw serial values was inefficient so we built this real-time visualizer to:
✔ Clearly display which sensors are triggered
✔ Optimize debugging with instant visual feedback

Open-Source

The original project was designed specifically for the sensors and components used in the football robot for Roboticus. The goal now is to make the application universally usable for a wider audience and allowing wider customization.

Would you like to help with this project? Feel free to make a pull request!

Features

• Live 2D representation of sensor positions
• Color-coded coordinates representing activation
  • Red: sensor triggered
  • Blue: sensor not triggered
  • Yellow: sensor deactivated
• COM port selection when reading data

How to use

1. Adjust the arduino code to your liking. Take a look at customization
2. Upload the arduino code to your microprocessor
3. Calibrate the coordinates.json for the visual in case of any specific shape of a pcb
4. Run the python code while the microprocessor is powered
5. Select the correct COM port
6. Enjoy the visual feedback

Customization

• main.py
  • Give coordinates for each sensor to match a specific shape if necessary (i.e. of a PCB)
  • Give each sensor a label on the graph (i.e an ID to do something very specific).
• visualisation.ino
  • Allow use of EEPROM to receive values if required

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/sSpectrals/phototransistor-visualizer.git

2. Install dependencies::

   pip install -r docs/requirements.txt

Credits

Developed by Edgar Mamikonian as part of Roboticus Robotics Team