Rotary Motion Sensor

The Vernier Rotary Motion Sensor is a bidirectional angle sensor designed to measure rotational or linear position. It is commonly used to study rotational dynamics, angular momentum, and the period of a pendulum. It produces a pulse on one digital line when it rotates one direction and on another line when it rotates in the other direction. To keep track of the motion of the Rotary Motion Sensor, you can simply tally pulses in each direction.

The Rotary Motion Sensor should be connected to the Digital 1 port on the Vernier Arduino Interface Shield or a Digital Protoboard Adapter wired to Arduino pins 2, 3, 4, and 5 as explained in the Connecting Vernier Sensors to the Arduino Using a Breadboard section. The VernierLib library does not support the Rotary Motion Sensor, but the sample sketch, VernierTutorialRotaryMotion, tallies the motions in both directions and reports the result every half second.

The pulses that the Rotary Motion Sensor generates are very short. To detect and count them accurately, you need to use “interrupt lines.” Using an interrupt frees the microcontroller to do other tasks while not missing an input from the rotary encoder. (For more information on Arduino interrupts see: http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/AttachInterrupt)

It is useful to know that the Vernier Rotary Motion Sensor can take data in either of two modes. In Normal resolution mode, it measures an angle to the nearest degree. In High-Resolution mode, the Rotary Motion Sensor measures an angle to one quarter of a degree. The VernierTutorialRotaryMotion sketch defaults to Normal resolution, but you can switch to High-Resolution by changing the variable highResOn to True.

/* VernierTutorialRotaryMotion (v2017)
 * This sketch monitors a Vernier Rotary Motion Sensor and 
 * returns angle readings every half second. The default 
 * mode is Normal resolution (1 deg angle changes), but you 
 * can switch to High resolution (0.25 deg angle changes).
 * 
 * Plug the Rotary Motion Sensor into the Digital 1 port on the 
 * Vernier Arduino Interface Shield or into a Digital Protoboard 
 * Adapter wired to Arduino pins 2, 3, 4, and 5.
 */

boolean highResOn = false; //create global variable for resolution mode (normal=false, high=true)
float angleChange; //create global variable for angle measurement 
const int encoderPinCCW = 2; //create global variable for pin assignment counterclockwise direction
const int encoderPinCW = 3; //create global variable for pin assignment clockwise direction
const int resPin = 5; //create global variable for pin assignment for resolution mode
volatile int encoderPos = 0; //create global variable for position (variables changed within interrupts are volatile)

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600); //setup communication to display
  pinMode(encoderPinCCW, INPUT_PULLUP); //setup CCW pin
  pinMode(encoderPinCW, INPUT_PULLUP); //setup CW pin
  pinMode (resPin, OUTPUT); //setup pin for resolution mode
  if(highResOn) angleChange = 0.25; //check if high resolution is true (angle=0.25 deg)
  else angleChange = 1; //set normal resolution angle to 1 deg
  digitalWrite(resPin,highResOn); //initialize resolution mode
  digitalWrite(encoderPinCCW, LOW); //initialize CCW pin status
  digitalWrite(encoderPinCW, HIGH); //initialize CW pin status
  attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(encoderPinCCW), doEncoderCCW, RISING); //trigger when pin goes from LOW to HIGH
  attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(encoderPinCW), doEncoderCW, FALLING); //trigger when pin goes from HIGH to LOW
 }
 
void loop() {
  Serial.println(encoderPos*angleChange); //display angle in degrees                               
  delay(500); //wait half second
}

void doEncoderCCW() { //create function to measure CCW angle change
    encoderPos++; //count UP
}

void doEncoderCW() { //create function to measure CW angle change
    encoderPos--; //count DOWN 
}