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Control Brightness of Arduino Onboard LED from Android Device

This example uses:

Open Model

This example shows how to control the brightness of the Arduino® LED from an Android® device.

Introduction

Android phones and tablets provide wireless access and a user interface. Arduino is an open-source platform used for building electronics projects. Arduino consists of both a hardware board with a microcontroller and a software Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that runs on your computer. Using these two, you can, for example control Arduino hardware using an Android device by connecting them wirelessly.

This example provides two Simulink models:

  • androidarduinoledcontrol Android model — In this model, the slider block present on Android is used to control the brightness of Arduino onboard LED.

  • arduino_android_ledcontrol Arduino model — In this model, data received from your Android device is sent as an input to the PWM block of Arduino, to control the brightness of LED.

With these models, you will:

  • Set up a network connection between an Android device and Arduino

  • Configure and run Simulink models for Android device and Arduino to remotely control the brightness of the LED on the Arduino.

Prerequisites

Supported Arduino Boards

Arduino boards that require WiFi shield:

  • Arduino Mega 2560

  • Arduino Mega ADK

  • Arduino Due

  • Arduino Leonardo

  • Arduino MKR ZERO

  • Arduino Uno

Arduino boards that have on-board Wi-Fi®:

  • Arduino MKR 1000

  • Arduino MKR WIFI 1010

  • Arduino Nano 33 IoT

  • Arduino compatible ESP32-WROOM

  • Arduino compatible ESP32-WROVER

Required Hardware

  • Any supported Arduino board

  • Android device such as phone or tablet

  • Arduino WiFi Shield/ESP8266

Task 1 - Configure Simulink Model for Supported Arduino Hardware

You can skip this task if you are using the Arduino Mega ADK board.

In this task, you will configure the model for the supported Arduino board.

1. In your Simulink model, click Simulation > Model Configuration Parameters to open the Configuration Parameters dialog box.

2. Select the Hardware Implementation pane and select your required Arduino hardware from the Hardware board parameter list. Do not change any other settings.

3. Click OK.

Task 2 - Configure Network Connection

Set up a network connection between an Android device and an Arduino. The communication protocol used in this example is TCP/IP.

1. Connect the WiFi Shield on the Arduino hardware.

For more details on connecting the Arduino to WiFi Shield, see Connect Arduino WiFi Shield to Arduino Hardware.

For more details on connecting the Arduino to ESP8266, refer to Connect ESP8266 to Arduino Hardware in the documentation.

The Arduino MKR1000 has an on-board Wi-Fi chip. It can be used directly without any additional Wi-Fi hardware.

2. Open the Arduino model. To configure the network settings for the Arduino WiFi Shield, go to Configuration Parameters > Hardware Implementation > Target hardware resources > WiFi properties.

3. Specify the SSID of your Wi-Fi network in the Service set identifier (SSID) parameter.

4. Select the WiFi encryption parameter based on your Wi-Fi network encryption settings.

For more details on configuring the network settings for Arduino WiFi Hardware, see Configure Network Settings for Wi-Fi.

5. Connect your Android device to the same Wi-Fi network to which the Arduino is connected.

Task 3 - Configure and Run Simulink Model on Android Device and Arduino Hardware

1. Open the arduino_android_ledcontrol Arduino Simulink model.

2. On the Hardware tab of the Simulink model, in the Mode section, select Run on board and then click Build, Deploy & Start to run this model on your Arduino hardware.

3. In the Diagnostic viewer, find the dynamically assigned IP address of Arduino below the memory usage information. Alternatively, a MATLAB® base workspace variable with the name modelname_IPaddress is created with the value of the IP address.

4. Open the androidarduinoledcontrol Android Simulink model.

5. Double-click on the TCP/IP Send block and change the Remote address to the IP address of the Arduino hardware.

6. On the Hardware tab of the Simulink model, in the Mode section, select Run on board and then click Build, Deploy & Start to run this model on Android device.

7. In the Android device, change the Slider value on Android device to control the brightness of LED.

For more information on configuring Simulink models on Android devices and EV3 Hardware, see Run Model on Android Devices and Run Model on Arduino Hardware.

Other Things to Try

  • Replace WiFi Block in Arduino model with Ethernet block.

  • Connect the Arduino hardware to the electronic appliances using relays and with the help of button Block on Android, control them.