Monitor UV radiation with VEML6070 and PIC24HJ256GP610 to study its impact on the environment

Radiant insights

Published Sep 19, 2023

Click board™

UV 3 Click

Dev Board

UNI-DS v8

Compiler

NECTO Studio

MCU

PIC24HJ256GP610

Learn how this groundbreaking UV measurement technology enables you to achieve unmatched accuracy, opening doors to enhanced safety, environmental monitoring, and cutting-edge applications

Hardware Overview

How does it work?

UV 3 Click is based on the VEML6070, a UVA light sensor from Vishay Semiconductor designed by the CMOS process. The VEML6070 is an advanced ultraviolet (UV) light sensor with an I2C protocol interface designed by the CMOS process. The active acknowledge (ACK) feature with the threshold windows setting allows the UV sensor to send a UVI alert message. The VEML6070 incorporates a photodiode, amplifiers, and

analog/digital circuits into a single chip. VEML6070’s adoption of Filtron™ UV technology provides the best spectral sensitivity to cover UV spectrum sensing. It has excellent temperature compensation and a robust refresh rate setting that does not use an external RC low pass filter. VEML6070 has linear sensitivity to solar UV light and is easily adjusted by an external resistor. This Click board™ can operate with either 3.3V or 5V

logic voltage levels selected via an onboard jumper. This way, both 3.3V and 5V capable MCUs can use the communication lines properly. Also, this Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing easy-to-use functions and an example code that can be used as a reference for further development.

Features overview

Development board

UNI-DS v8 is a development board specially designed for the needs of rapid development of embedded applications. It supports a wide range of microcontrollers, such as different STM32, Kinetis, TIVA, CEC, MSP, PIC, dsPIC, PIC32, and AVR MCUs regardless of their number of pins, and a broad set of unique functions, such as the first-ever embedded debugger/programmer over WiFi. The development board is well organized and designed so that the end-user has all the necessary elements, such as switches, buttons, indicators, connectors, and others, in one place. Thanks to innovative manufacturing technology, UNI-DS v8 provides a fluid and immersive working experience, allowing access anywhere and under any

circumstances at any time. Each part of the UNI-DS v8 development board contains the components necessary for the most efficient operation of the same board. An advanced integrated CODEGRIP programmer/debugger module offers many valuable programming/debugging options, including support for JTAG, SWD, and SWO Trace (Single Wire Output)), and seamless integration with the Mikroe software environment. Besides, it also includes a clean and regulated power supply module for the development board. It can use a wide range of external power sources, including a battery, an external 12V power supply, and a power source via the USB Type-C (USB-C) connector. Communication options such as USB-UART, USB

HOST/DEVICE, CAN (on the MCU card, if supported), and Ethernet is also included. In addition, it also has the well-established mikroBUS™ standard, a standardized socket for the MCU card (SiBRAIN standard), and two display options for the TFT board line of products and character-based LCD. UNI-DS v8 is an integral part of the Mikroe ecosystem for rapid development. Natively supported by Mikroe software tools, it covers many aspects of prototyping and development thanks to a considerable number of different Click boards™ (over a thousand boards), the number of which is growing every day.

Microcontroller Overview

MCU Card / MCU

Type

8th Generation

Architecture

dsPIC

MCU Memory (KB)

256

Silicon Vendor

Microchip

Pin count

100

RAM (Bytes)

16384

Used MCU Pins

mikroBUS™ mapper

RST

SCK

MISO

MOSI

Power Supply

3.3V

Ground

GND

PWM

Interrupt

RF6

INT

I2C Clock

RA2

SCL

I2C Data

RA3

SDA

Power Supply

Ground

GND

Take a closer look

Schematic

Step by step

Project assembly

Fusion for PIC v8 front image hardware assembly

Start by selecting your development board and Click board™. Begin with the UNI-DS v8 as your development board.

NECTO Output Selection Step Image hardware assembly

In the advanced settings, pay special attention to the Redirect standard output field. By default, it is set to Application output as the method of displaying final results. To show results via a UART terminal, select the “UART” option in that field and click the “SAVE” button. You will be returned to the Compiler field, and now you can move on to the next step by pressing the “NEXT” button.

Buck 22 Click front image hardware assembly

SiBRAIN for PIC32MZ1024EFK144 front image hardware assembly

v8 SiBRAIN MB 1 - upright/background hardware assembly

NECTO Compiler Selection Step Image hardware assembly

Track your results in real time

Application Output

After pressing the "FLASH" button on the left-side panel, it is necessary to open the UART terminal to display the achieved results. By clicking on the Tools icon in the right-hand panel, multiple different functions are displayed, among which is the UART Terminal. Click on the offered "UART Terminal" icon.

Once the UART terminal is opened, the window takes on a new form. At the top of the tab are two buttons, one for adjusting the parameters of the UART terminal and the other for connecting the UART terminal. The tab's lower part is reserved for displaying the achieved results. Before connecting, the terminal has a Disconnected status, indicating that the terminal is not yet active. Before connecting, it is necessary to check the set parameters of the UART terminal. Click on the "OPTIONS" button.

In the newly opened UART Terminal Options field, we check if the terminal settings are correct, such as the set port and the Baud rate of UART communication. If the data is not displayed properly, it is possible that the Baud rate value is not set correctly and needs to be adjusted to 115200. If all the parameters are set correctly, click on "CONFIGURE".

The next step is to click on the "CONNECT" button, after which the terminal status changes from Disconnected to Connected in green, and the data is displayed in the Received data field.

Software Support

Library Description

This library contains API for UV 3 Click driver.

Key functions:

uv3_enable_sensor - This function enable sensor by sets shutdown mode bits as LOW to the target 8-bit CMD slave address
uv3_read_measurements - This function reads UV data measurements from to the two target 8-bit slave address
uv3_risk_level - This function calculate UV risk level of VEML6070 sensor on UV 3 Click

Open Source

Code example

This example can be found in NECTO Studio. Feel free to download the code, or you can copy the code below.

/*!
 * \file 
 * \brief Uv3 Click example
 * 
 * # Description
 * Converts solar UV light intensity to digital data 
 * and measure UV radiation under long time solar UV exposure.
 *
 * The demo application is composed of two sections :
 * 
 * ## Application Init 
 * Initialization driver enable's - I2C, enable sensor and start write log.
 * 
 * ## Application Task  
 * This is a example which demonstrates the use of UV 3 Click board.
 * UV 3 Click communicates with register via I2C by write to register and read from register,
 * measurement UV data, calculate UV radiation level and write log.
 * Results are being sent to the Usart Terminal where you can track their changes.
 * All data logs write on usb uart changes for every 2 sec.
 * 
 * 
 * \author MikroE Team
 *
 */
// ------------------------------------------------------------------- INCLUDES

#include "board.h"
#include "log.h"
#include "uv3.h"

// ------------------------------------------------------------------ VARIABLES

static uv3_t uv3;
static log_t logger;

static uint16_t uv_data;
static uint8_t risk_lvl;

// ------------------------------------------------------ APPLICATION FUNCTIONS

void application_init ( void )
{
    log_cfg_t log_cfg;
    uv3_cfg_t cfg;

    /** 
     * Logger initialization.
     * Default baud rate: 115200
     * Default log level: LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG
     * @note If USB_UART_RX and USB_UART_TX 
     * are defined as HAL_PIN_NC, you will 
     * need to define them manually for log to work. 
     * See @b LOG_MAP_USB_UART macro definition for detailed explanation.
     */
    LOG_MAP_USB_UART( log_cfg );
    log_init( &logger, &log_cfg );
    log_info( &logger, "---- Application Init ----" );

    //  Click initialization.

    uv3_cfg_setup( &cfg );
    UV3_MAP_MIKROBUS( cfg, MIKROBUS_1 );
    uv3_init( &uv3, &cfg );
    uv3_default_cfg ( &uv3 );
}

void application_task ( void )
{
    uv_data = uv3_read_measurements( &uv3 );
    
    Delay_ms( 200 );

    risk_lvl = uv3_risk_level( uv_data );

    log_printf( &logger, "UV value  : %d\r\n ", uv_data );

    log_printf( &logger, "Radiation lvl : " );

    if ( risk_lvl == UV3_RAD_LOW )
    {
        log_printf( &logger, "Low\r\n " );
    }

    if ( risk_lvl == UV3_RAD_MODERATE )
    {
        log_printf( &logger, "Moderate\r\n " );
    }

    if ( risk_lvl == UV3_RAD_HIGH )
    {
        log_printf( &logger, "High\r\n " );
    }

    if ( risk_lvl == UV3_RAD_VERY_HIGH )
    {
        log_printf( &logger, "Very High\r\n " );
    }

    if ( risk_lvl == UV3_RAD_EXTREME )
    {
        log_printf( &logger, "Extreme\r\n " );
    }

    Delay_ms( 2000 );
}

void main ( void )
{
    application_init( );

    for ( ; ; )
    {
        application_task( );
    }
}


// ------------------------------------------------------------------------ END